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JOHN   RUSKIN'S   LETTERS 
TO    WILLIAM   WARD 


Ueritas  temporis  jilia 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


Plate  I 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 
TO  WILLIAM  WARD 


WITH  A  SHORT  BIOGRAPHY  OF 

WILLIAM  WARD  ::  BY  WILLIAM  C.  WARD 

AND  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

ALFRED  MANSFIELD   BROOKS 


MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 
BOSTON  ::  MASSACHUSETTS 


COPYRIGHT  •  1922  •  BY 
MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 


1  V 


K 


MADE  IN  THE  U'S'A 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  PAGE 

I   John  Ruskin Frontispiece 

II   William  Ward Facing  i8 

III   Section  of  letter  dated  May  28,  1858  .   .  60 

IV  Section  of  letter  dated  May  28,  1858  .   .  60 

V  Shell  by  William  Ward 74 

VI   Section  of  letter  dated  February  6,  1863.  76 

VII  Letter  dated  February  15,  1863 78 

VIII   Letter  dated  March  23,  1863 80 

IX   Section  of  letter  dated  August  15,  1867  88 

X   Letter  dated  December  3,  1869 102 

XI   Letter  dated  December  18,  1869 104 

XII   Section  of  letter  dated  July  30,  1871.   .  108 

XIII  Letter  dated  February  14,  1872 112 

XIV  Section  of  letter  dated  January  20,  1874  122 
XV   Section  of  letter  dated  November  2,  1875  130 

XVI   Section  of  letter  dated  February  26, 1877  136 

XVII   Letter  dated  August  2,  1877 138 

XVIII   Section  of  letter  dated  November  24, 1880  154 

XIX  Section  of  letter  dated  January  i,  1881   .  156 

XX  Letter  dated  January  8,  1881 158 


PREFACE 

THE  published  letters  of  famous  men  are  too 
often  only  those  written  to  other  famous 
men;  too  often  about  what  are  called  the  impor- 
tant questions  of  the  day.  That  John  Ruskin's 
letters  of  this  kind  mount  into  many  volumes  is 
good.  But  it  is  not  the  whole  good.  Again  and 
again  in  letters  to  men  like  Carlyle  and  Norton 
he  touches  with  gentleness  amounting  to  affec- 
tion, with  satire  amounting  to  savageness,  upon 
political  and  economic  questions,  or  questions  of 
art.  Many  a  time  will  one  who  is  familiar  with 
The  Stones  of  Venice,  Modern  Painters,  The 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  with  Fors  Clavi- 
gera,  or  Praeterita,  hark  back  to  such  an  epistolary 
sketch  knocked  off  in  a  moment  of  love  or  wrath, 
which  was  later  developed  into  one  of  his  great 
passages — page  or  chapter.  The  reward,  in  terms 
of  deeper  understanding,  which  this  brings  is  close 
kin  to  the  reward  which  waits  upon  the  discovery 
of  the  connection  between  a  painter's  sketch,  his 

[7] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

slightest  pencil  note  even,  and  his  finished  picture. 
Often  it  is  the  golden  and  only  key  to  the  gate  of 
appreciation.  This  Goethe  made  passing  plain 
when  he  said  to  Eckerman  that  drawings  are  in- 
valuable because  they  give,  in  its  purity,  the  men- 
tal intention  of  the  artist — the  mood  of  his  mind 
at  the  moment  of  creation. 

It  is  not  in  letters  to  famous  men  only  that  Rus- 
kin  does  this  thing.  It  could  not  be  so  with  a  man 
whose  temper  was  such  as  to  convince  him  that 
^'the  peace  of  God  rested  on  all  the  kindly  hearts 
of  the  laborious  poor;  and  that  the  only  constant 
form  of  pure  religion  was  in  useful  work,  faithful 
love,  and  stintless  charity."  To  numberless  men 
who  were  the  utmost  remove  from  famous  he 
wrote  letters,  hundreds  of  them,  every  word  a 
burning  witness  to  the  faith  which  his  life  kept 
with  this,  his  creed.  Such  are  these  letters  to 
William  Ward,  now  for  the  first  time  published, 
though  some  of  them  were  printed  for  private 
circulation  in  1893.  The  impression,  however, 
was  limited  to  a  few  copies  only. 

Who  William  Ward  was,  and  how  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Ruskin  came  about,  and  how  it  ripened 
into  an  enduring  friendship,  is  told  in  the  memoir 
by  his  son,  William  C.  Ward.    If  it  takes  two  to 

[8] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

quarrel,  surely  it  takes  two  to  be  friends.  The 
pity  is  we  have  not  Ward's  letters  to  Ruskin,  for 
then  we  should  have  the  beautiful  story  of  that 
sort  of  friendship,  ''peculiar  boon  of  heaven," 
which  is  frequently  implied,  but  nowhere  more 
strongly  than  in  a  postscript  in  which  Ruskin 
says,  ''Always  write  to  me  when  it  does  you  good, 
as  it  does  me  good,  too."  Forgetful  of  any  bal- 
ance; to  give  and  take  only!  Two  human  beings 
seeking,  solely,  each  other's  good,  "in  useful  work, 
faithful  love  and  stintless  charity."  That  is  the 
legend  on  the  shield  of  this  blessed  relation;  one 
side  of  which,  Ruskin's,  we  happily  can  know  in 
full;  the  other  side  of  which.  Ward's,  we  may 
conceive  of  in  such  degree  as  we  ourselves  have 
plumbed  the  deeps  of  friendship;  have  the  right 
to  bear  its  shield. 

In  his  writing  upon  art,  Ruskin  many  times 
points  out  how  the  best  pictures  are  composed  pri- 
marily of  two  main  areas;  one,  light;  the  other, 
shade:  and  how  the  light  finds  its  way  into  the 
darkness,  even  to  the  point  of  seeming  impene- 
trability. So  it  was  with  his  life  and  interests. 
His  interest  in  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  of  all 
such  art  as  is  true  to  her,  constituted  his  area  of 
light;  misery  of  human  kind,  the  dark.    The  con- 

[9] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

stant  struggle  to  justify  the  ways  of  God,  coupled 
with  his  adoration  for  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
true  and  lovely,  made  him  and  kept  him  pro- 
foundly religious,  though  he  could  never  commit 
himself  to  any  specific  theological  confines;  less 
and  less  so  as  his  years  lengthened  towards  eighty. 
Midway  upon  the  journey  of  his  life,  with  Unto 
This  Last,  the  cleavage  between  the  two  areas 
makes  itself  clear  and  the  picture  passes  to  the 
shadow.  Before  this  his  dominating  interests  had 
been  those  of  Modern  Painters,  Stones  of  Venice 
and  The  Seven  Lamps.  Now  they  were  those  of 
Time  and  Tide,  and  Fors  Clavigera;  social  prob- 
lems and  the  alleviation  of  suffering.  But  he  fails 
utterly  to  understand  this  remarkable  man  who 
fails  to  see  how  his  dark  area  was  penetrated  by 
innumerable  rays  of  light,  as  the  darkness  of  a  fine 
Rembrandt  is;  lit  up  by  a  consuming  ardor  for 
natural  beauty  and  its  counterpart  in  every  form 
of  art:  ardor  typified  at  the  age  of  three  and  a 
half  years,  when  he  asked  to  have  the  background 
of  his  portrait  painted  with  ''blue  hills." 

Now  this  man,  artist,  critic,  economic  theorist, 
social  reformer  and  philanthropist,  realized  per- 
fectly that  teaching,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  by  writ- 
ing  books,    and    by   personal    example,    however 

[lo] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

good,  is  but  half  done  unless  it  produces  teachers 
who  shall  spread  and  carry  forward  the  work  of 
the  master.  The  fact  is  that  Ruskin  was,  before 
all  else,  the  teacher.  As  such,  one  of  his  chief 
interests,  but  not  the  chief,  as  many  people 
wrongly  think,  was  the  incomparable  depiction  of 
landscape  by  the  painter,  J.  M.  W.  Turner.  To 
teach  others  (many)  to  know  and  enjoy  Turner  was 
with  Ruskin  a  passion ;  Turner  who  did  in  the 
medium  of  line  and  color  the  very  thing  Words- 
worth did  in  words;  namely,  give  to  what  in  na- 
ture is  short-lived,  immortal  life  in  art.  Together, 
these  two,  through  their  works  which  live  after 
them,  and  in  which  they  live,  have  opened  closed 
eyes  and  hard  hearts  innumerable  to  the  inmost 
and  unspeakable  delights  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky 
and  growing  plants.  So  to  make  Turner  known 
Ruskin  set  to  work  in  his  earliest  manhood.  In 
his  twenty-fifth  year  the  first  volume  of  Modern 
Painters  appeared.  It  was  devoted  to  the  praise 
of  Turner  and  the  relation  of  his  landscape  to  that 
of  all  other  painters  who  ever  lived.  Its  like  was 
never  seen  before.  But  this  is  not  the  place  to  dis- 
cuss what  is  so  well  known.  It  is,  however,  the 
place  to  point  out  the  fact  that  Ruskin,  with  great 
wisdom,  realized  that  not  by  speaking  and  writ- 

[II] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

ing  only,  though  with  tongue  almost  angelic,  with 
pen  apocalyptic,  could  he  spread  appreciation  of 
his  revered  landscapist.  Men  must  see  his  pic- 
tures, as  well  as  be  told  what  to  see  in  them,  and 
how  to  study  them;  for  seeing,  he  felt  assured, 
would  be  believing.  And,  further,  people  must 
know  something  of  the  technical  and  intellectual 
difficulties  of  actually  making  the  picture  through 
which,  and  in  after  days,  the  imagination  and 
understanding  of  the  artist  shall  make  themselves 
felt.  In  a  word,  they  must  be  taught  what  good 
drawing  is,  and  how  to  do  it.  Precept  without 
practice  Ruskin  would  have  none  of.  To  his  mind 
constant  use  of  the  pencil  was  at  least  as  essential 
as  close  study  of  what  others  had  done  with  the 
pencil.  Out  of  such  a  system  of  instruction  he 
felt  there  would  come  more  general  grasp  of  fact 
presaging,  as  a  corollary,  an  increasing  public 
sense  of  beauty  and  truth  in  art  and  in  nature, 
and  thus  leading  up  to  God;  establishing  a  vir- 
tuous circle,  so  to  speak.  To  see  and  to  feel,  yes; 
but  to  do  so  in  order  to  express  seeing  and  feeling; 
never  to  do  so  for  the  mere  sake  of  doing;  activity 
for  the  illumination  of  purpose,  never  to  display 
adroitness.  Drawing  was  so  to  be  understood  and 
taught  in  Ruskin's  scheme.     No  man  ever  more 

[12] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

forcibly  declared,  by  word  and  deed,  the  futility 
of  work  for  work's  sake. 

As  a  book,  however  able  and  alluring,  Ruskin 
could  hope  Modern  Painters  would  reach  but  one 
class  of  people  and  comparatively  few  of  them. 
The  same  of  Ruskin,  the  lecturer.  This  was  the 
class  of  the  well-to-do  and  the  rich.  These  like- 
wise were  the  only  ones  who  could  possess  Tur- 
ner's pictures,  or  the  costly  engraved  reproduc- 
tions of  them.  It  is  true  that  he  reached  vastly 
more  in  such  ways,  and  does  yet,  through  Modern 
Painters,  than  even  he  could  have  dared  hope. 
But  making  assay  of  every  way  was  the  only  way 
to  satisfy  the  demands  which  his  generosity  and 
enthusiasm  laid  upon  him.  There  were  the  work- 
ing classes,  and  the  poor  whom  he  had  always 
with  him  in  strictly  scriptural  sense.  These,  too, 
should  have  their  chance  to  know  Turner  and, 
through  his  interpretation,  more  of  the  beauty  of 
art  and  nature.  They  should  be  taught  to  draw 
both  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  as  a  means  to  the  fur- 
ther end  of  appreciation.  The  teaching,  too, 
should  be  the  very  best.  And  some,  he  hoped, 
among  the  teachers  and  the  taught  would  be  able 
ultimately  to  copy  Turner  so  sympathetically, 
which  means  with  extreme  intelligence  of  heart 

[13] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

and  hand,  as  to  constitute  their  copies  truthful  and 
inspiring  representatives  of  the  originals.  To 
bring  this  about,  he  offered  his  services  as  drawing 
master  at  the  Working  Men's  College,  1854.  ^^^ 
only  did  he  aim  to  teach  drawing  himself  but  to 
make  good  drawing  teachers  as  well.  Among 
these  William  Ward  was  facile  princeps.  He 
was  soon  appointed  under  drawing-master.  The 
year  1857  was  that  in  which  Elements  of  Drawing 
was  published.  In  the  preface  Ruskin  recom- 
mended Ward  as  a  teacher.  The  story  is  told  in 
the  letters. 

At  this  time,  too.  Ward  began  to  copy  Turner. 
The  growth  of  his  power  in  this  direction  and  the 
unique  place  he  finally  made  for  himself  forms  a 
rare  chapter  in  the  history  of  art.  The  letters 
tell  the  story  actually,  and  by  implication,  in  a 
fascinating  manner;  a  story  of  struggle,  incessant 
work,  discouragement,  success,  on  Ward's  part; 
encouragement,  severe  criticism,  minute,  literally 
microscopic  attention,  unswerving  faith  and,  in  the 
end,  jubilant  praise  and  satisfaction  on  Ruskin's 
part:  on  the  part  of  both  of  them  common  under- 
standing, common  enthusiasms,  mutual  respect, 
love. 

Such  a  letter  as  that  of  Sept.  14th,  '79,  set  the 

[14] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

last  seal  of  the  master  upon  the  pupil-master's 
work.  ''The  drawing  goes  to  Mr.  Ross  today, 
very  prettily,  though  I  say  it,  altered  from  'J.  M. 
W.  Turner'  to  'W.  Ward  after  J.  M.  W.  T.'  with 
'seen  with  delight  J.  Ruskin'  below."  And  on 
April  30th,  '81,  Ruskin  writes  Ward  of  making 
"copying  more  understood  as  artists'  work." 
Would  it  were  so  today! 

The  degree  of  accuracy  coupled  with  feeling 
which  Ruskin  required  in  every  copy  before  he 
would  put  his  name  and  approval  to  it,  thus  mak- 
ing it  marketable,  was  a  hard  test  but  one  which 
Ward  met  again  and  again  with  complete  satis- 
faction. It  was  through  Ruskin  that  Charles 
Eliot  Norton,  name  to  be  held  in  perpetual  respect 
by  Americans  who  care  for  the  finer  things  of  life, 
met  Ward.  It  was  he  who  created  a  demand  for 
Ward's  copies  of  Turner  on  this  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, where  they  were  bought  generously. 

Not  a  few  proofs  of  Ruskin's  humour,  based,  as 
good  humour  always  is,  upon  serious  foundations, 
as  Shakspeare's  and  Charles  Lamb's  is,  and  more 
than  one  touch  of  his  wit,  are  scattered  through 
these  letters.  By  way  of  example:  "There  are 
beautiful  people — beautiful  in  sense  of  all  good- 
ness— in  the  world,  here  and  there;  the  worst  of 

[IS] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

it  is,  most  of  them  are  apt  to  be  foolish."  And : 
'^I'm  glad  you  like  little  Chalky.  You  needn't 
put  in  the  double  moon  (a  sketch  made  after  din- 
ner) ? !"  That  the  great  majority  of  Ruskin's  read- 
ers persist  in  denying  wit  and  humour  to  him,  repu- 
tation which  keeps  and  has  kept  many  from  him 
who  would  enjoy  him,  is  but  part  of  the  strange 
illusion,  peculiarly  American,  which  holds — 
Shakspeare,  Fielding,  Hogarth,  Lamb,  Thack- 
eray, Dickens  and  scores  more  notwithstanding — 
that  Englishmen  the  lacking  in  these  respects! 

Kindness,  twin-sister  of  humour,  is  even  more  in 
evidence  as  one  reads  on.  Not  to  get  over-tired, 
not  to  strain  eyesight,  not  to  hold  back  from  asking 
when  need  might  be,  together  with  plans,  accom- 
panied by  the  wherewithal,  for  little  journeys  of 
relaxation  and  change  of  scene,  as  well  as  work, 
picture  Ruskin,  the  man,  as  one  would  have  his 
dearest  relative  or  best  friend  pictured.  It  re- 
calls, ''a  great  portrait  is  always  more  a  portrait 
of  the  painter  than  the  painted."  And  with  all  his 
generosity  he  appears,  as  he  actually  was,  a  shrewd 
business  man  and  will  have  what  belongs  to  him. 
To  give  a  good  article,  the  very  best  possible, 
whether  a  Turner  copy,  one  of  the  sets  of  photo- 
graphs which  in  later  years  Ward  sold  with  due 

[i6] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

authority  as  illustration  of  Ruskin's  writings,  or 
a  number  of  Fors,  and  to  be  fairly  paid  for  it,  was 
his  principle.  His  punctilious  care  for  other  peo- 
ple's time  and  for  keeping  appointments  is  in  the 
same  line,  and  not  least,  though  last,  his  dislike 
of  '^guessing." 

And  yet,  as  if  these  letters  were  meant  to  have 
been  a  miniature  epitome  of  Ruskin's  life,  traces 
of  irritability,  signs  of  depression,  references  to 
frequent  illness,  heart-break  and  loss  are  not 
omitted.  As  the  shadow,  but  not  less  the  light, 
such  is  life,  they  say. 

Turning  to  the  practical  matter  of  learning  and 
teaching  to  draw,  they  will  be  found  most  useful, 
for  they  contain  rule  upon  rule  concerning  funda- 
mental points  set  forth  in  the  simplest  and  most 
direct  of  language.  Often  the  rule  is  accompanied 
by  an  illustration,  a  pen  scrawl  which,  however 
rough  and  hurried  it  may  appear,  will,  upon  care- 
ful study,  prove  to  be  all  that  the  case  required. 
The  cause  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  Ruskin  is 
giving  instruction  to  a  pupil,  but  a  pupil  who  had 
in  him  the  makings  of  an  artist.  At  another  time 
Ruskin  is  instructing  this  same  pupil  how  to  teach 
the  elementary  things  in  drawing  to  others,  his 
own  pupils;  a  pupil  who  had  in  him  the  makings 

[17] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

of  a  teacher.  It  will  not  fail  to  interest  anyone 
who  is  familiar  with  the  Elements  of  Drawing  to 
trace  the  many  similarities  between  it  and  the  pas- 
sages relating  to  drawing,  even  the  rapid  pen 
sketches,  in  these  letters.  That  we  have  here  the 
first  attempt  to  give  drawing  as  a  University  Ex- 
tension course  is  as  interesting  today  as  it  was  a 
natural  development  of  the  Working  Men's  Col- 
lege idea  in  the  middle  fifties.  But,  after  all,  as 
looking  at  pictures  is  more  profitable  than  hearing 
and  reading  about  them,  so,  up  to  a  certain  point 
at  least,  these  letters  from  John  Ruskin  to  William 
Ward  are  worth  more  at  first  hand  than  anything 
that  can  be  said  about  them. 

Alfred  Mansfield  Brooks 


[i8] 


•p  PISTON 


i  del 


1?% 


/ETAT./5 


WILLIAM  WARD 


WILLIAM    WARD 
By  William  C.  Ward 

MY  FATHER,  William  Ward,  was  bom  at 
Thornton  Heath,  Croydon,  in  the  county 
of  Surrey,  on  the  23rd  of  April,  1829.  He  was 
the  first-born  child  of  William  and  Sarah  Ward. 
His  school  education  was  somewhat  desultory. 
Of  the  various  schools  which  he  attended  as  a  boy, 
the  most  notable  was  Alcott  House  School,  at 
Ham  Common,  near  Richmond  in  Surrey,  then 
conducted  by  Mr.  and  Miss  Wright.  I  do  not 
know  whether  Mr.  A.  Bronson  Alcott  was  actually 
concerned  in  the  foundation  of  this  school,  but  it 
certainly  took  its  name  from  him,  and  was  inspired 
by  his  principles.  Moncure  D.  Conway  records 
a  meeting  there  of  the  ^'friends  of  human  prog- 
ress" in  1842,  which  was  addressed  by  Mr.  Al- 
cott.* To  this  school  my  father  was  sent  as  a 
boarder  in  the  spring  of  1840.  The  choice  of 
*  "Emerson  at  Home  and  Abroad" — London,  1883,  p.  257. 

[19] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

school  was  eminently  characteristic  of  my  grand- 
father, but,  I  know  not  for  what  reason,  the  boy's 
residence  there  was  brief.  In  his  old  age  I  have 
heard  my  father  speak  with  warm  appreciation 
of  Alcott  House  School,  and  of  the  good  which 
he  gained  from  it. 

But  if  his  school  education  was  desultory,  home 
influences  largely  supplied  its  deficiencies.  My 
grandfather  was  a  remarkable  man;  versatile,  in- 
tellectual, with  strongly  idealistic  tendencies,  and 
deeply  concerned  in  the  education  of  his  children. 
During  my  father's  boyhood,  and  onward  to  the 
end  of  his  own  life,  he  was  engaged  as  traveller 
to  a  firm  of  wholesale  cloth  merchants  in  the  City 
of  London;  driving  his  own  horse  and  chaise,  as 
was  the  custom  in  those  days  when  railroads  were 
few,  and  visiting  many  parts  of  England  in  the 
course  of  his  travels  on  business.  In  his  frequent 
absences  from  home  he  corresponded  diligently 
with  his  eldest  son,  and,  by  good  fortune,  many 
of  his  letters  have  been  preserved.  From  these 
I  shall  quote  a  few  passages  hereafter,  to  show 
their  character  and  tendency;  meanwhile  I  will 
only  express  my  conviction  that  what  he  learned 
from  these  letters,  and  from  more  immediate  inter- 
course with  the  writer  of  them,  constituted  quite 

[20] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

the  most  valuable  part  of  my  father's  education. 
That  the  relation  between  the  father  and  the 
son  may  be  more  clearly  understood,  it  seems  de- 
sirable to  give  some  brief  account  of  my  grand- 
father's earlier  career.  He  was  born  on  the  20th 
of  March,  1806 — I  believe,  in  London.  His  par- 
ents were  members  of  the  Moravian  community, 
but  from  them  he  was  separated  at  a  very  early 
age,  and  the  family  in  which  he  was  brought  up 
belonged  to  the  Established  Church  of  England. 
This  early  training,  however,  failed  to  reconcile 
him  to  the  Established  Church.  He  did  not  find 
true  knowledge  of  religion  among  those  of  its 
members  with  whom  he  was  in  contact,  and  pre- 
ferred Dissenters  as  more  consistent.  In  his  thir- 
teenth year  he  ran  away  to  sea,  and  joined  a  mer- 
chant vessel.  Later,  he  enlisted  in  the  army,  and 
was  certainly  a  soldier  in  his  eighteenth  year.  He 
had  the  habit  of  keeping  a  journal,  and  that  part 
of  it  which  has  been  preserved  (from  1828  on- 
wards) reveals  a  deeply  religious  soul,  striving 
earnestly  and  consistently,  through  many  outward 
changes,  to  get  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  There 
is  much  of  the  fervent  temper  of  a  seventeenth- 
century  Puritan  in  this  journal.  The  writer  ac- 
cuses himself  of  wild  and  loose  conduct  in  his 

[21] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

youth,  but  this  kind  of  self-accusation  is  a  com- 
mon feature  of  Puritan  introspection.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  writes:  ''From  a  child  I  can  ac- 
knowledge to  having  been  sensible  of  something 
within  me  reproving  me  for  evil  and  inviting  me 
to  Goodness."  This  disposition  was  encouraged  by 
letters  from  a  brother,  afterwards  a  preacher 
among  the  Baptists,  and  by  the  reading  of  relig- 
ious books.  He  writes  again:  "The  allurements 
of  the  world  were  too  strong  for  one  so  much  in- 
clined as  myself  to  the  gratification  of  the  senses, 
and  it  was  not  until  about  the  i8th  year  of  my 
age  that  I  became  at  all  decided.  I  had  many 
times  resolved  to  reform,  and,  retired  from  the 
society  of  men  into  secret  places,  with  tears  prayed 
for  a  clean  heart  and  a  right  spirit."  He  was  at 
this  time,  as  I  said,  a  soldier,  and  it  was  one  night 
in  hospital  that  the  final  resolution  to  repent  and 
reform  came  suddenly  upon  him,  with  immediate 
results  which  occasioned  no  little  disturbance  to 
the  other  patients  in  the  ward.  He  resolved  never 
to  return  to  the  course  he  had  long  pursued,  and 
appears,  indeed,  to  have  kept  his  resolution. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1826  a  British  expedi- 
tionary force  was  sent  to  Portugal  to  support  the 
constitutional  government  against  the  rebels  who 

[22] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

were  invading  the  country  from  Spain,  with  the 
connivance  and  assistance  of  the  Spanish  authori- 
ties. With  this  expedition  my  grandfather  served. 
He  was  more  than  a  year  in  Portugal,  returning 
to  England  in  the  spring  of  1828.  Upon  his  return 
he  was  stationed  at  Croydon,  where  he  renewed 
acquaintance  with  Sarah  Furner,  a  girl  about  two 
years  younger  than  himself,  the  daughter  of  a 
fellow  soldier.  Farrier  Thomas  Furner.  He  had 
first  met  this  girl  some  four  years  previously,  and 
a  mutual  attachment  had  sprung  up ;  but  the  ac- 
quaintance was  broken  off  by  Miss  Furner  in  con- 
sequence, as  her  lover  admits,  of  the  unsteadiness 
of  his  conduct.  On  its  renewal  in  1828,  however, 
matters  went  more  smoothly  between  them;  they 
were  married  the  same  year  at  Croydon,  on  the 
17th  of  July. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  left  the  army,  my 
grandmother  insisting  upon  this  step  as  a  condi- 
tion of  their  marriage.  By  the  spring  of  1829,  if 
not  sooner,  he  was  working  as  a  gardener  at 
Thornton  Heath.  A  year  later  he  had  removed 
with  his  wife  and  infant  son  to  London,  and  was 
following  the  occupation  of  a  milkman  at  Cam- 
berwell.  Still  another  year,  and  his  commercial 
career  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  his  engage- 

[23] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

ment  as  warehouseman  by  a  firm  of  silk  merchants 
in  the  City  of  London.  About  1833  he  commenced 
travelling  on  business,  and,  with  (I  believe)  some 
interruptions,  he  remained  a  commercial  traveller 
for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

At  the  time  of  his  marriage  my  grandfather, 
like  his  wife,  was  a  Wesleyan  Methodist.  Two 
or  three  years  later  we  find  him  attending  meet- 
ings of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  he  presently 
became  a  member  of  this  body,  though,  as  he  char- 
acteristically notes  in  his  journal  (Dec,  1830)  : 
^'Being  joined  to  any  people  in  the  outward  sense 
is  nothing."  Through  all  his  outward  changes, 
it  was  ever  the  inward  spiritual  truth  of  which  he 
was  in  quest.  Later  letters  and  journals  evince  a 
mind  continually  developing,  the  old  zeal  and 
earnestness  directed  to  ever  widening  issues. 
Idealism  was  the  predominant  feature  of  his  faith. 
He  was  one  of  the  early  English  admirers  of 
Emerson,  between  whose  turn  of  thought  and  his 
own,  at  least  in  his  later  years,  there  was  no  little 
affinity.  A  tendency  to  mysticism  is  observable  in 
his  writings:  he  named  one  of  his  sons  after  Jacob 
Behmen,  and  his  journal  contains  long  extracts 
from  the  writings  of  James  Pierrepoint  Greaves, 
with  whom  he  was  personally  acquainted.     He 

[24] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

wrote  much,  but  printed  little;  as  far  as  I  know, 
three  or  four  pamphlets  represent  the  sum  of  his 
published  work. 

Yet  with  all  his  idealism  he  was  also,  in  some 
respects,  a  man  of  the  world.  It  is  certain  that  he 
was  highly  esteemed  by  his  fellow  commercials 
''on  the  road"  as  a  man  of  wit  and  a  genial  com- 
panion. One  of  them  has  left  a  lively  sketch  of 
him,  under  the  sobriquet  of  Sambo  Bookworm,  in 
allusion  both  to  the  ''nigger"  songs  with  which  he 
would  occasionally  entertain  his  companions,  and 
to  his  intense  love  of  reading.*  A  few  sentences 
may  be  worth  quoting.  "I  think  that,  as  a  char- 
acter, this  man  stands  more  prominently  forward 
than  any  it  ever  fell  to  my  lot  to  meet  with.  In- 
deed, I  know  of  no  one  who  has  played  so  many 
parts  on  the  stage  of  life,  throwing  into  each  so 
much  of  truth  and  nature  as  to  render  it  a  com- 
plete and  perfect  whole."  "  He  is  always  humor- 
ous, never  commonplace;  he  delights  in  a  hearty 
but  not  practical  joke;  and  usually,  to  enliven  the 
long  winter  evenings,  he  produces  a  social  feeling 
by  performing  admirably  upon  one  of  the  best 
toned  accordions  (presented  to  him  by  a  few  com- 

*  "Sketches  from  the  Diary  of  a  Commercial  Traveller" — By- 
Throne  Crick.     London,  1847,  pp.  92-96. 

[25] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

mercial  friends  as  a  token  of  esteem)  I  have  ever 
listened  to.  His  vocal  efforts,  too,  especially  his 
comics  and  niggerisms,  are  inimitable;  and,  al- 
though he  never  forces  them  upon  your  time  or 
attention,  he  readily  and  cheerfully  complies  with 
your  wish  upon  a  first  solicitation. 

'Tor  years  Master  Bookworm  has  had  the 
moral  courage  to  establish  principles  of  action — 
peculiarly  his  own,  too — and  for  a  time,  to  carry 
them  out,  to  the  astonishment  of  everybody.  He 
has  successively  professed — and,  I  believe,  with 
perfect  sincerity — Methodism,  Quakerism,  Owen- 
ism,  and  every  other  ism,  often  changing  his  relig- 
ion,t  yet,  I  apprehend,  without  religion  ever 
having  changed  him.  Throughout,  he  has  main- 
tained a  degree  of  consistency,  stamping  him  as  the 
possessor  of  a  powerful  mind,  though  somewhat 
impaired  by  caprice  and  a  desire  for  change — or 
rather  by  an  anxiety  to  read  and  study  life  in  all 
its  various  phases." 

Of  my  grandfather's  letters  to  my  father,  the 
earliest  which  I  possess  is  dated  May  lo,  1840,  and 
is  addressed  to  the  boy,  then  just  turned  eleven, 
at  Alcott   House   School.     He  writes:    'T   hope 

t  It  must  be  noted  that  the  word  "religion"  is  here  used 
in  a  purely  external  sense. 

[26] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

that  every  day  your  thoughts  may  be  higher  and 
deeper.  You  cannot  tell  how  thankful  I  shall  be 
to  receive  from  you  the  expression  of  your  own  in- 
generated  ideas.  What  did  you  see  at  Hampton 
Court?  Were  you  particularly  interested  with  any 
of  the  objects?  I  would  suggest  the  propriety  of 
your  thoroughly  investigating  one  fine  painting  or 
piece  of  sculpture,  and  to  write  down  all  the  sen- 
sations it  seems  to  occasion  in  you.  The  mere 
superficial  observers  receive  only  a  superficial  de- 
light in  whatever  they  observe.  But  those  who 
can  penetrate  into  the  hidden  beauties  enjoy  the 
substance  which  is  lasting  and  remains  when  the 
appearance  is  removed." 

Such  letters  as  this,  addressed  to  a  boy  of  eleven, 
cast  an  interesting  light  on  the  characters  both  of 
the  parent  who  wrote  them  and  the  son  who,  at  so 
tender  an  age,  could  be  expected  to  understand 
and  respond  to  their  teaching.  A  few  months 
later  he  inquires  what  his  son  is  doing  '4n  the  in- 
tellectual way."  ''Are  you  making  new  discov- 
eries, is  your  mind  growing,  or  are  you  merely 
burdening  your  memory  with  words  which  you 
understand  not?"  He  utilizes  his  commercial 
journeys  to  give  his  son  occasional  lessons  on  the 
geography  of  the  counties  through  which  he  is 

[27] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

travelling.  But  it  is  with  the  development  of  the 
boy's  character  that  he  is  principally  concerned. 
Before  the  completion  of  his  twelfth  year  the  son 
is  told:  ''You  are  now  arrived  at  an  age  capable 
of  discovering  your  true  interests."  ''Go  heartily 
to  work,"  the  father  bids  him ;  "no  work  is  of  value 
that  is  heartless." 

My  father  was  intended  for  a  commercial  ca- 
reer, and,  about  the  end  of  February,  1844,  was 
placed  with  a  draper  at  Yarmouth.  His  father's 
letter  to  him  on  this  change  in  his  circumstances 
is  extremely  characteristic.  "The  first  act  of  your 
life  has  passed,"  he  writes,  "the  drop  scene  is  fall- 
ing over  your  years  of  childhood,  and  shortly  it 
will  again  be  raised  to  exhibit  you  in  the  second 
act.  May  you  enter  upon  it  with  the  resolute 
determination  that  Truth  shall  be  your  motiving 
spirit  upon  all  occasions  and  under  all  circum- 
stances. ...  I  am  sure  that  you  are  too  far  ad- 
vanced in  moral  consciousness  to  consider  the  con- 
duct of  others  as  the  license  for  your  departure 
from  the  paths  of  rectitude.  William,  my  boy, 
there  is  a  divine  germ  within  your  human  spirit, 
and  much  depends  upon  your  conduct  as  to 
whether  it  shall  grow  up  in  you  as  your  second 
nature,  your  new  life,  or  be  as  it  is  in  most,  buried 

[28] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

and  hidden.  William,  I  tell  you,  now  that  you  are 
about  to  enter  upon  a  new  act  of  your  life,  that  not 
to  me,  not  to  us,  you  must  look.  Our  relationship 
to  you  is  but  secondarily  to  be  thought  of.  You 
hold  a  primary  relation  to  God,  and  the  all-impor- 
tant consideration  with  you  must  be,  how  may  this 
relationship  be  most  perfectly  established.  .  .  . 
I  regret  that  I  cannot  avoid  placing  you  in  condi 
tions  where  you  will  be  surrounded  by  tempta- 
tion, especially,  perhaps,  to  prevaricate  and  mis- 
represent things.  Do  not,  for  the  divine  germ's 
sake,  commence  such  conduct.  Let  this  be  your 
firm  determination." 

I  know  not  how  long  my  father  remained  in 
this  situation  at  Yarmouth.  The  latest  letter  which" 
I  can  ascertain  to  have  been  sent  to  him  at  this 
address  bears  the  date  of  April  23,  1845;  but  the 
addresses  of  most  of  the  letters  are  lost.  Nor  can 
I  tell  what  his  business  conditions  were  during  the 
years  immediately  succeeding  this.  At  a  later 
period  he  became  clerk  to  a  firm  of  linen  mer- 
chants in  the  City  of  London.  This  position  he 
held  at  the  time  of  his  marriage,  and  until  his  con- 
nection with  Ruskin  had  changed  the  whole  course 
and  prospects  of  his  career. 

In  April,  1844,  ^is  father  again  writes  to  him  at 

[29] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Yarmouth:  ^'Remember  that  you  have  no  need  to 
condescend  to  the  mean  practices  of  business  gen- 
erally; do  your  business  as  your  duty  to  Truth. 
Let  Truth  be  your  master.  .  .  .  Our  employment 
is  burdensome  only  when  Pure  Love  is  not  the  end 
for  which  we  work.  I  am  much  pleased  with  your 
epistle.  Continue  to  think,  and  practice  writing 
your  thoughts  in  a  free  manner.  Imitate  no  man 
or  party,  but  be  one  by  yourself.  Your  experience 
belongs  to  you,  and  none  can  possess  it  but  your- 
self." In  the  same  letter  he  adds:  '^Tell  me 
whether  you  can  understand  Emerson ;  it  is  a  valu- 
able book." 

He  sends  queries  for  his  son  to  answer,  some- 
times referring  directly  to  conditions  of  business, 
as  when  he  asks,  'What  is  the  difference  between 
a  tradesman  and  a  man  in  trade?"  To  this  topic 
he  returned  in  a  later  letter  (Sept.  12,  1845)  • 
''Do  not  be  a  man  of  trade,  but  a  man  in  trade. 
Man  is  always  above  circumstance."  In  July, 
1845,  he  complains  that  my  father  (then  sixteen) 
has  not  given  a  clear  answer  to  his  question  as  to 
the  difference  between  Constitutional  and  Insti- 
tutional religion ;  a  few  months  later,  however,  he 
finds  him  possessed  of  "just  ideas"  on  that  subject. 
To  my  grandfather.  Institutional  religion  was  of 

[30] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

value  only  as  a  mode  of  expressing  Constitutional 
religion.  In  a  letter  of  March  15,  1846,  he  writes: 
^'It  is  indeed  impossible  by  education  or  religion 
or  anything  institutional,  to  produce  that  change 
which  is  necessary  in  the  constitution.  The  hu- 
man constitution  needs  regeneration.  Instruction, 
reformation,  remodification  and  refinement  result 
from  education  and  other  institutional  conditions; 
but  the  highest  species  of  intellectual  or  religious 
refinement  is  not  regeneration,  and  leaves  the 
merely  improved  being  only  a  refined  degenerate 
being." 

From  1849,  if  not  earlier,  my  grandfather  was 
for  some  years  an  ardent,  though  I  would  not  say 
a  bigoted,  vegetarian.  Like  his  other  ''isms," 
vegetarianism  was  to  him  always  a  means,  never 
an  end.  My  father  was  also  a  vegetarian  in  early 
manhood,  and  indeed  for  some  time  after  his  mar- 
riage; but  in  process  of  time  they  both  discon- 
tinued the  practice — I  believe,  in  both  cases,  from 
considerations  of  health. 

Both  father  and  son  were,  throughout  their  lives, 
readers  and  lovers  of  books.  In  December,  1849, 
the  elder  man  writes  to  his  son,  in  a  strain  which 
Emerson,  at  least,  would  have  heartily  approved: 
^'You  will  find  both  Emerson  and  Carlyle  to  be 

[31] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

good  conditions  for  you,  while  you  treat  them  as 
conditions,  believing  only  in  the  Centre.  Adopt 
not,  but  be  adopted.  Let  the  Centre  Love  adopt 
you  to  be  its  executive  organ.  Let  both  Emerson 
and  Carlyle  bow  to  the  Spirit  in  you.  When  Em- 
erson and  Carlyle  bring  you  to  the  Spirit  within, 
bid  them  adieu  and  commence  with  it.  I  love  to 
talk  with  these  illuminated  authors  about  God, 
but  I  prefer  hearing  the  Lord  God  in  the  cool  of 
my  own  garden." 

Of  my  father's  early  years  I  know  little  beyond 
the  few  facts  already  recounted.  He  began  draw- 
ing when  very  young ;  in  fact,  an  aptitude  for  draw- 
ing seems  to  have  been  common  in  the  family, 
though  my  father  was  the  only  one  who  developed 
it  seriously  in  after  life.  As  a  youth  he  attended 
a  school  of  art,  but  his  true  art-education  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  commenced  before  his  con- 
nection with  Ruskin  and  the  Working  Men's  Col- 
lege. 

On  the  7th  of  March,  1853,  my  father  was  mar- 
ried, in  the  Unitarian  Chapel  at  Coventry,  to  Au- 
gusta Ellen  Clack,  daughter  of  Thomas  Clack,  a 
schoolmaster  in  that  town.  It  was,  in  the  best 
sense,  a  happy  marriage.  My  mother  was  a  true 
helpmeet,  who  shared  her  husband's  joys  and  sor- 

[32] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

rows  for  many  years,  and  proved  herself  capable 
of  sustained  sympathy  with  him,  not  only  in  his 
feelings,  but  in  his  thoughts  and  pursuits.  She, 
too,  was  a  lover  of  reading,  and  at  a  later  period 
acquired  the  habit,  confirmed  through  a  long 
course  of  years,  of  reading  aloud  to  my  father  in 
the  evenings.  In  this  way  they  enjoyed  together 
a  great  deal  of  the  best  English  literature — poetry, 
the  drama  (especially  Shakspeare),  philosophy, 
history,  etc.  Nor  was  prose  fiction  neglected,  par- 
ticularly in  its  earlier  examples.  They  derived 
much  pleasure,  not  only  from  Scott,  but  from  the 
novelists  of  the  eighteenth  century — Richardson, 
Fielding,  Fanny  Burney  and  others,  including 
some  of  the  less  known  authors,  of  that  period. 
The  humour  of  ''Tristram  Shandy,"  indeed,  was 
a  little  outside  my  mother's  scope,  though  my 
father  had  a  high  admiration  for  that  unique  book. 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  they  read,  and  of  course 
enjoyed,  but  fiction  of  a  later  date  seems  to  have 
attracted  them  comparatively  seldom.  Among 
contemporary  authors  (besides  Ruskin)  Carlyle, 
Emerson  and  the  two  Brownings  were  prime  fa- 
vorites; above  all,  perhaps,  Emerson,  whose  writ- 
ings, both  in  prose  and  in  verse,  my  father  always 
delighted  in.    I  have  more  than  once  heard  him  say 

[33] 


JOHN  RUSKIN^S  LETTERS 

that  of  all  men  Emerson  seemed  to  him  to  have 
known  best  how  to  live. 

My  father's  introduction  to  Ruskin  is  best  de- 
scribed in  his  own  words.  ''Some  time  in  1854,  a 
friend,  Mr.  Henry  Swan,  late  curator  of  the  Rus- 
kin Museum  at  Sheffield,  called  upon  me,  bring- 
ing with  him  Ruskin's  ''Seven  Lamps  of  Architec- 
ture," of  which  he  read  a  few  pages.  The  words 
came  like  a  revelation,  and  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion upon  me.  I  longed  to  know  more;  and,  learn- 
ing that  the  author  was  actually  teaching  a  draw- 
ing class  at  the  Working  Men's  College  (then  at 
No.  31,  Red  Lion  Square)  I  as  soon  as  possible 
enrolled  myself  as  a  pupil.  I  well  remember  the 
first  evening.  Upon  entering  the  class-room,  full 
of  the  expectation  of  seeing  the  man  whose  words 
had  so  charmed  me,  I  saw,  walking  between  the 
easels  at  which  the  men  were  seated,  two  teachers' 
— one,  a  dark  bearded  man  with  a  fine  head,  look- 
ing every  inch  an  artist;  the  other,  fair  and  some- 
what slightly  built,  with  deep  penetrating  eyes,  and 
an  inexpressible  charm  of  manner.  The  former 
was  Lowes  Dickenson;  the  latter,  John  Ruskin. 

"I  was  first  set  to  copy  a  white  leather  ball,  sus- 
pended by  a  string,  and  told  to  draw  exactly  what 
I  saw — making  no  outline,  but  merely  shading  the 

[34] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

paper  where  I  saw  shade.  The  result  was  rather 
a  feeble  affair;  but  I  remember  that  Mr.  Ruskin 
was  much  taken  with  my  attempt  at  extreme  ac- 
curacy by  putting  in  even  the  filaments  of  the 
string.  After  the  ball  came  plaster  casts  of  leaves, 
fruit,  and  various  natural  objects.  A  tree,  cut 
down  by  Mr.  Ruskin's  directions,  was  also  sent 
from  Denmark  Hill,  and  fixed  in  a  corner  of  the 
class  room  for  light  and  shade  studies.  To  our 
great  delight,  Mr.  Ruskin  used  continually  to 
bring  us  treasures  from  his  own  collection — min- 
erals, shells,  Rembrandt  etchings,  Albert  Diirer 
and  Turner  engravings,  drawings  by  William 
Hunt,  Turner  and  others.  His  delightful  way  of 
talking  about  these  things  afforded  us  most  valu- 
able lessons.  To  give  an  example :  he  one  evening 
took  for  his  subject  a  cap,  and  with  pen  and  ink 
showed  us  how  Rembrandt  would  have  etched, 
and  Albert  Diirer  engraved  it.  This  at  once  ex- 
plained to  us  the  different  ideas  and  methods  of 
the  tw^o  masters.  On  another  evening  he  would 
take  a  subject  from  Turner's  "Liber  Studiorum," 
and,  with  a  large  sheet  of  paper  and  some  char- 
coal, gradually  block  in  the  subject,  explaining 
at  the  same  time  the  value  and  effect  of  the  lines 
and  masses. 

[35] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

^'Ruskin  was  a  rare  presence  among  us,  teaching 
us  to  feel  and  see  the  beauty  in  things,  not  how  to 
draw  them  prettily.  He  made  everything  living 
and  full  of  interest,  and  disliked  servile  copying 
and  ^niggling.'  Excessive  care  he  admired,  but 
not  work  for  work's  sake.  To  show  this,  he  would 
make  a  rapid  drawing  by  the  side  of  a  student's 
work,  that  he  might  see  how,  with  all  his  elabo- 
ration, he  had  missed  the  'go'  of  the  thing.    .    .    . 

''A  delightful  reminiscence  of  old  times  is  that 
of  some  pleasant  rambles  a  few  of  us  (who  could 
command  the  leisure)  had  with  Mr.  Ruskin 
through  Dulwich  Wood — now,  alas!  covered  with 
villas.  On  these  occasions  we  took  our  sketching 
materials,  and  sitting  in  a  favourable  spot,  per- 
haps opposite  a  broken  bank  partly  covered  with 
brambles  and  topped  by  a  few  trees,  spoiled  a  few 
sheets  of  paper  in  trying  to  make  something  of  it. 
The  result  on  paper  was  not  worth  much ;  but  Mr. 
Ruskin's  criticisms,  and  a  few  touches  on  our  work, 
gave  us  some  ideas  that  were  worth  a  great  deal. 
As  a  wind-up  to  these  sketching  parties  we  ad- 
journed to  the  Greyhound  to  tea  and  some  very  in- 
teresting talk.  Upon  one  of  these  occasions  I  gave 
Mr.  Ruskin  a  favourite  book  of  mine,  the  Poems 
of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  which  he  had  not  seen. 

[36] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

He  told  me  at  a  subsequent  meeting  that  the  poem 
he  liked  best  was  "The  Mountain  and  the  Squir- 
rel."* He  afterwards  gave  me  the  Poems  of 
Samuel  Rogers,  illustrated  with  Turner's  ex- 
quisite vignettes.  These  were  a  great  delight  and 
I  felt  myself  in  possession  of  a  small  Turner 
gallery. 

''In  1857  Mr.  Ruskin  published  his  ''Elements  of 
Drawing,"  and  the  reference  to  my  name  in  the 
preface  brought  me  some  work  in  the  way  of  teach- 
ing and  corresponding.  At  this  time  Turner's 
pictures  and  drawings,  bequeathed  by  him  to  the 
nation,  were  exhibited  at  Marlborough  House.  I 
was  at  once  sent  by  Mr.  Ruskin  to  make  copies  for 
him;  and  this  copying  was  continued  at  the  South 
Kensington  Museum,  whither  the  pictures  were 
removed;  and  afterwards  at  the  National  Gallery, 
where  they  now  rest.  How  deeply  Mr.  Ruskin  was 
interested  in  this  work  the  following  letters  will 
abundantly  prove.  In  the  year  1877  the  Fine  Art 
Society  opened  in  New  Bond  Street  with  an  ex- 
hibition of  my  Turner  copies,  kindly  lent  by  Mr. 
Ruskin. 

"As  a  relief  from  this  close  work  at  the  National 
Gallery,  Mr.  Ruskin  sent  me,  in  company  with 

*  The  short  poem  entitled  "Fable." 

[37] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Mr.  George  Allen,*  for  a  walking  tour  up  the 
valley  of  the  Meuse,  to  see  and  sketch  some  of  the 
subjects  of  Turner's  drawings.  I  afterwards  went 
to  Luxemburg,  a  favourite  sketching-ground  of 
Turner's,  with  the  same  object.  It  was  not  an 
easy  matter  to  discover  Turner's  points  of  view, 
but  when  they  were  discovered,  I  always  found  that 
I  required  two  pages  of  my  sketch  book  to  get  in 
as  much  of  the  subject  as  Turner  had  compressed 
into  one  page  of  his. 

^The  only  subject  which  still  remains  to  be  no- 
ticed, is,  I  think,  that  of  the  photographs  referred 
to  in  the  letters.  These  photographs  Mr.  Ruskin 
caused  to  be  taken  and  collected  for  instruction 
to  his  students,  and  he  appointed  me  agent  for 
their  distribution.  Other  sets  were  planned,  to 
which  Mr.  Ruskin  intended  writing  notes,  but 
these  plans  were  never  carried  out." 

Under  Ruskin's  training  my  father  made  rapid 
progress.  About  1857  he  relinquished  his  com- 
mercial career  to  become  a  teacher  of  drawing  on 
Ruskin's  system.  Pupils  were  not  wanting,  some 
of  whom  became  personal  and  even  intimate 
friends;  he  acted  also  as  under  drawing-master 

*  Afterwards  Ruskin's  publisher.  This  tour  took  place  in 
the  late  summer  and  autumn  of  1867. 

[38] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

to  Ruskin  at  the  Working  Men's  College.  My 
grandfather  lived  to  see  him  embarked  upon  his 
new  profession,  but  died  soon  afterwards,  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1858.  In  a  letter  to  his  son  dated  the  7th 
of  September,  1855 — the  latest  which  I  possess — 
he  refers  to  Ruskin.  '^I  congratulate  you,"  he 
writes,  '^on  the  intimacy  of  your  acquaintance  with 
such  a  man  as  Ruskin."  Then  follows  the  admir- 
able advice:  ''Be  not  overpowered  by  him  .  .  .  . 
unite  with  him  in  heart,  and  leave  room  for  orig- 
inality in  your  artistical  development.  By  all 
means  avail  yourself  of  the  valuable  aid  of  such 
a  man,  but  you  know  what  I  mean."  Riper  years 
and  cooler  judgment  could  not  fail  to  modify,  to 
some  extent,  my  father's  early  enthusiasm  for  Rus- 
kin, but  he  always  held  him  in  true  and  affectionate 
regard,  and  retained  a  hearty  admiration  for  his 
great  qualities. 

For  the  first  few  years  after  his  marriage  my 
father  continued  to  reside  in  London.  In  1863  he 
removed  to  Twickenham,  then  a  far  more  rural  dis- 
trict than  it  is  at  present;  and,  to  finish  at  once  with 
his  changes  of  residence,  he  left  Twickenham  at 
Michaelmas  in  1874,  ^^d  settled  at  Richmond  Sur- 
rey, in  the  house  (No.  2  Church  Terrace)  which 
he  occupied  during  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

[39] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

It  was  in  1858  that  he  began  the  work  with 
which,  in  later  years,  his  name  came  to  be  pecu- 
liarly associated — the  copying  of  Turner's  water- 
colour  drawings.  For  this  task  he  was  exception- 
ally fitted,  both  by  his  intimate  appreciation  of 
Turner's  art,  and  by  the  conscientiousness  and  in- 
stinctive delicacy  of  his  own  work,  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that,  with  advancing  skill  in  technique, 
his  Turner  copies  became  unrivalled  in  their  kind. 
With  few  exceptions,  they  were  all  from  drawings 
in  the  National  collection;  the  exceptions  being 
from  some  of  Ruskin's  own  Turner  drawings, 
which  he  lent  to  my  father  from  time  to  time  for 
this  purpose.  Among  the  latter  I  remember  par- 
ticularly the  great  drawings  of  Heysham,*  Flue- 
len,  and  Coblentz.  The  close  study  of  Turner 
which  this  work  involved,  bore  fruit  in  a  profound 
knowledge  and  skilled  judgment  of  that  master's 
art,  upon  which,  in  course  of  time,  my  father  be- 
came an  acknowledged  authority. 

With  all  this  teaching  and  copying,  he  found 
time  for  a  considerable  amount  of  original  work, 
especially  during  the  eleven  years  of  his  residence 
at  Twickenham.    His  subjects  were  landscape  and 

*  My  father's  copy  of  ''Heysham"  is  now  in  the  Fogg  Art 
Museum  of  Harvard  University. 

[40] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

still-life;  his  medium  was,  almost  exclusively, 
water-colour.  In  default  of  any  pronounced  gift 
of  composition,  the  distinguishing  feature  of  his 
original  work  is  to  be  found  in  the  exquisite  sense 
of  colour  which  his  drawings  display.  He  loved 
the  rich  mystery  of  twilight,  and  many  of  his  land- 
scapes depict  effects  of  sunset  or  later  evening. 
The  sense  of  form,  though  by  no  means  defective, 
was  in  him,  I  think,  secondary  to  that  of  colour. 
Perhaps  his  most  marked  originality  appears  in 
his  treatment  of  skies.  At  Twickenham,  his  bed- 
room window  faced  the  east,  and  for  twelve 
months  together  he  made  a  practice  of  rising  be- 
fore sunrise  in  order  to  sketch  the  effect.  His  still- 
life  shows  something  of  the  influence  of  William 
Hunt,  from  whom  he  received  a  few  lessons  in 
1859;  but  here  also  originality  is  not  wanting. 
Between  i860  and  1876  (both  years  included)  he 
exhibited  seventeen  original  drawings  at  the  Royal 
Academy,  and  during  the  same  period  a  good 
many  of  his  water-colours  found  places  on  the 
walls  of  other  exhibitions,  notably  the  Dudley  Gal- 
lery in  Piccadilly. 

After  this  period  his  original  output  became 
less  and  less  in  quantity  and  finally  ceased,  the 
Turner  copying  now  occupying  most  of  his  time. 

[41] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

This,  too,  in  its  turn,  was  gradually  abandoned, 
my  father  finding  the  strain  upon  his  eyes  of  such 
close  work  too  severe  for  his  advancing  years.  It 
was  relinquished  altogether  about  1890,  and  he 
then  turned  his  whole  attention  to  an  occupation 
which  he  had  already,  for  some  time,  combined 
with  his  other  employment — that  of  a  dealer  in 
prints  and  drawings,  specializing,  as  he  was  so  well 
qualified  to  do,  in  the  works  of  Turner  and  Rus- 
kin,  but  including,  in  his  periodic  catalogues  of 
things  offered  for  sale,  many  other  fine  works  of 
art,  particularly  by  English  artists  of  the  eigh- 
teenth and  early  nineteenth  centuries.  In  quite 
early  years  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  procuring 
prints,  etc.,  for  his  pupils;  later,  his  work  as  agent 
for  the  distribution  of  Ruskin's  photographs  had 
largely  increased  his  connection;  so  that  by  the 
time  his  first  catalogue  was  issued  (in  1885)  there 
were  already  not  a  few  lovers  of  art  to  whom  his 
name  was  well  known,  and  who  were  glad  to  buy 
from  a  dealer  upon  whose  knowledge  and  judg- 
ment they  could  so  safely  rely.  Such  catalogues 
he  continued  to  issue  during  the  rest  of  his  life,  the 
business  resulting  from  them,  in  which  he  was  now 
assisted  by  his  eldest  son,  producing  a  return  suffi- 
cient for  his  moderate  requirements. 

[42] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Externally,  his  life  was  uneventful — a  quiet 
life,  devoted  to  art  and  books  and  the  care  of  his 
home.  In  all  things  he  was  a  lover  of  the  good, 
the  true,  and  the  beautiful.  He  took  great  pleasure 
in  good  music,  though  his  technical  knowledge 
of  it  was  not  considerable,  and,  with  my  mother, 
attended  the  best  concerts  from  time  to  time.  Not 
less  was  the  delight  which  they  both  took  in  the 
theatre,  especially  when  Shakspeare  was  per- 
formed, but,  after  the  removal  to  Twickenham, 
the  distance  from  London  rendered  this  a  rare  en- 
joyment. His  house  at  Twickenham  was  very 
small,  but  had  a  good  garden,  well  stocked  with 
fruit  and  vegetables,  in  the  cultivation  of  which 
he  found  relaxation.  At  Richmond,  the  garden 
was  much  missed,  though  the  house — a  red  brick 
building  of  late  seventeenth  century — was  pleas- 
anter  and  of  superior  accomodation. 

His  home  life  was  interrupted  by  occasional  ex- 
cursions, for  the  purpose  of  sketching,  to  various 
parts  of  England  and  Scotland.  On  several  oc- 
casions also  he  visited  the  Continent,  to  make  draw- 
ings of  architectural  subjects  for  Ruskin.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1868,  he  was  working  in  this  way  at  Abbe- 
ville, in  Ruskin^s  company.  He  writes  to  my 
mother  (Sept.  13th)  :    "If  you've  any  idea  that  I 

[43] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

am  out  for  a  holiday  you  may  dismiss  it  as  soon  as 
you  like.  You  know  how  J.  R.  regulates  his  time 
by  the  hour.  Very  well,  we  have  to  fall  into  the 
same  system,  and  there's  no  time  lost  I  can  tell  you. 
He  begins  with  Crawley  (his  valet)  at  5:30  and 
with  me  at  7:00.  An  hour's  walk  before  breakfast 
with  physical  and  metaphysical  discussions  just  to 
give  you  an  appetite.  At  9  sharp  ofif  to  your  subject 
in  the  market  place  or  elsewhere,  lunch  at  i  and 
ofif  for  drawing  again  from  3  till  7;  then  dinner 
and  bed.  R.  goes  to  bed  at  9 130,  but  I  can't  stand 
that.  .  .  .  We  have  had  some  lovely  walks  and 
talks."  Two  of  my  father's  Abbeville  drawings 
were  placed  by  Ruskin  in  his  drawing-school  at 
Oxford  University.  A  tour  in  Belgium  and  Lux- 
emburg has  been  already  mentioned.  One  of  his 
longest  visits  to  the  Continent  was  to  Mont  St. 
Michel  (in  1873),  where  he  spent  two  or  three 
months  making  drawings  in  the  cloisters.  On  this 
journey  my  mother  accompanied  him. 

In  September,  1879,  the  heaviest  blow  of  my 
father's  life  fell  upon  him  in  the  death,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one  years,  of  his  second  surviving  son, 
Thomas  Lawrence  Ward,  a  youth  of  singular 
promise  as  an  artist.  The  unmistakable  dawn  of 
genius  in  this  boy  had  already  marked  him  out 

[44] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

as  the  hope  of  the  family,  and  my  father  felt  the 
blow  deeply  and  permanently,  though  silently  as 
was  his  custom. 

My  mother  died  in  May,  1896,  after  several 
years  of  continuous  and  distressing  ill-health.  Two 
or  three  years  later  my  father  was  again  married. 
His  second  wife  was  Miss  Sarah  Young,  a  lady 
who  early  engaged  the  esteem  and  warm  regard  of 
all  his  family,  and  to  whose  untiring  care  and  de- 
votion the  happiness  of  the  last  years  of  his  life 
was  largely  due.  During  these  years  he  enjoyed, 
for  the  most  part,  good  health,  his  advanced  age 
being  considered.  He  still  attended  to  his  business, 
though  the  more  active  duties  connected  with  it 
were  left  more  and  more  to  the  care  of  his  son. 
But  his  interest  in  it  was  unfailing  down  to  the 
time  of  his  last  brief  illness.  He  died,  from  the 
effects  of  influenza,  at  Richmond,  in  the  house  in 
which  he  had  lived  for  upwards  of  thirty-three 
years,  on  Sunday,  the  8th  of  March,  1908. 

I  have  dwelt  somewhat  particularly  upon  my 
grandfather's  share  in  his  son's  development,  from 
the  belief  that  his  teaching  and  influence  were  re- 
flected in  my  father's  character  even  to  the  end  of 
his  days.  Notable  differences  there  were  between 
them:  the  younger  man  had  little  of  the  elder's 

[45] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

versatility,  and  was  in  temperament  more  silent 
and  reserved.  I  can  hardly  imagine  my  father,  at 
any  stage  of  his  life,  addressing  a  public  meeting, 
as  his  father  had  done  on  occasion ;  though  he  could 
talk,  and  talk  well,  in  private,  on  subjects  that  in- 
terested him.  But  these  differences  were  perhaps 
superficial.  They  were  both,  in  the  manliest  and 
noblest  sense,  good  men;  and  in  deeper  traits  of 
character,  in  their  love  of  truth,  their  idealist  ten- 
dencies and  thirst  for  spiritual  enlightenment,  the 
resemblance  between  them  was  strong.  Quite  late 
in  his  life  my  father  sought  to  satisfy  these  tenden- 
cies in  becoming  a  member  of  the  Hermetic  and 
Theosophical  Societies.  His  interest  in  the  teach- 
ing and  sympathy  with  the  general  aim  of  both, 
in  opposition  to  the  materialism  of  the  age,  were 
very  sincere;  but  the  satisfaction  he  derived  from 
them  was,  I  think,  imperfect.  Among  truly  phil- 
osophical teachers,  the  well-beloved  Emerson  con- 
tinued to  hold  the  first  place  in  his  esteem. 

Of  sorrows  and  disappointments  he  had  his 
share;  of  happiness  also  a  share.  Indeed,  if  hap- 
piness be  interpreted  in  that  high  sense  which  the 
old  Platonists  attached  to  the  word —  eudaimonia, 
a  state  of  spiritual  well-being — his  share,  like  his 
father's,  must  be  pronounced  considerable. 

[46] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 
TO  WILLIAM  WARD 


JOHN    RUSKIN'S    LETTERS 
TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 

1855 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  both  your  letters, 
and  for  this  last  the  more  in  acknowledging  the 
first.  I  should  be  glad  indeed  if  I  thought  that 
so  many  of  the  workmen  *  were  of  your  mind  as  to 
admit  of  your  using  that  large  ^^we  would  relieve 
ourselves."  At  all  events  I  am  truly  glad  to  know 
whom  I  can  count  upon  to  help  themselves  in 
such  a  spirit. 

But,  as  I  said  to  you,  I  do  not  count  upon  such 
a  temper  as  an  available  practical  element.  ( All  I 
hope  for  is  to  be  able  to  shew,  and  to  make  men 
understand,  how  they  may  live  more  comfortably 
— get  better  wages — and  be  happier  and  wiser  than 
they  are  at  present.    If,  after  that,  they  are  led  on 

*  The  students  at  the  Working  Men's  College. 

[49] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

to  better  things — well!  But  at  present,  it  seems 
to  me,  that  good  fellowship — reciprocal  help — ex- 
ercise of  brains  with  the  hands — and  such  other 
matters,  may  be  got  out  of  (or  into)  thousands  who 
would  not  listen  for  a  moment  if  one  were  to  begin 
talking  to  them  of  the  Influences  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  All  these  things  are  His  influences;  but  I 
think  we  have  to  advise  and  preach  them  just  as 
simply  as  one  would  advise  children,  who  were 
fighting  in  a  ditch,  to  get  out  of  it,  wash  their  faces, 
and  be  friends, — without  endeavouring,  at  that  mo- 
ment, to  instil  into  them  any  very  high  principles 
of  religion. 

I  am  very  glad  you  are  thinking  of  the  Protest- 
ant Convent  plan.*  I  have  no  doubt  we  shall 
carry  it  out,  and  that  all  over  the  country;  but 
just  because  it  is  so  important  a  scheme,  we  must 
not  attempt  it  till  we  are  sure  of  succeeding.  Let 
us  all  work,  but  still  the  main  word  for  us  all  must 
be  patience. 

*  A  scheme  of  Ruskin's  for  a  community  of  Art  Workers 
who  should  labor  under  certain  self-imposed  restrictions  which 
would  tend  to  promote  the  common  good.  As  such  this  scheme 
came  to  naught,  but  the  Guild  of  St.  George,  an  institution 
founded  upon  the  same  ideas,  though  quite  different  in  details, 
was  in  reality  a  later  development  of  the  "Protestant  Convent 
Plan." 

[50] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  hope  to  meet  you  then  at  Norwood  on  Sat- 
urday. 

Truly  yours  always, 

J.   RUSKIN 

London, 
February   c^th,   1855 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  was  just  going  to  write  to  you  about  your  draw- 
ing, which  is  very  good,  though  I  can't  give  you 
much  for  it,  or  I  should  unjustifiably  raise  the 
hopes  of  the  other  men.  We  must  finish  a  little 
more  before  we  can  command  price.  I  am  only 
going  to  give  you  Ten  Shillings  for  this.  It  is 
worth  that  to  me,  though  more  to  you ;  but  as  you 
get  on  you  will  put  more  value  on  your  work,  in 
less  time.  I  will  send  you  a  prettier  model;  and 
then,  I  think,  you  will  make  a  very  lovely  drawing. 

Don't  allow  yourself  to  dwell  on  the  evil,  or  you 
will  fall  into  despair;  and  you  will  come  across 
veins  of  good  some  day.  There  are  beautiful  peo- 
ple— beautiful  in  sense  of  all  goodness — in  the 
world,  here  and  there;  the  worst  of  it  is,  most  of 
them  are  apt  to  be  foolish. 

I  am  more  oppressed  and  wonderstruck  by  peo- 

[51] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

pie's  absurdity  than  anything  else  in  the  world; 
and  then,  what  wonderful  power  a  single  fool  has 
— the  wrong  way! 

But  you  know  all  your  annoyance,  as  well  as 
mine,  comes  of  sheer  disbelief.  If  you  really  sup- 
pose there  is  a  master  to  the  household,  you  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  attend  to  his  business,  and 
be  quiet  and  comfortable. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Always  write  to  me  when  it  does  you  good,  as 
it  does  me  good  too. 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

February  2/\.th,  1856 

Dear  Ward, 

As  I  expect  another  drawing  tonight  from  you, 
I  have  doubled  what  I  said. 

I  think  I  may  soon  want  a  drawing  master  under 
me,  to  refer  pupils  to  whom  I  have  not  time  to 
undertake.  I  think  you  might  soon  fit  yourself  for 
this,  and  that  it  might  soon  enable  you  to  change 
your  mode  of  life. 

Truly  yours, 

J.  R(uskin) 

[52] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

Dear  Ward,  ^^^^^  H^^.  1856) 

I  want  you  to  begin  Drawing  Master  on  Mon- 
day. I  consider  you  at  present  worth  about  five 
shillings  a  lesson,  which  therefore  you  are  to  ask; 
but  not  including  therein  any  omnibus  fare,  which 
I  shall  tell  the  people  I  send  you  to  pay. 

On  Monday,  at  10  o'clock,  evening,  I  want  you 
to  go  to  Miss  Oldfield,  11  Gloucester  Gardens, 
Hyde  Park;  and  to  shew  her  how  to  draw  leaves 
like  this  of  yours.  I  have  told  her  that  she  is  to 
expect  nothing  more  from  you  than  mere  instruc- 
tion in  drawing  from  nature.  You  must  just  work 
a  little  bit  before  her,  as  well  as  you  can;  but  I 
wish  you  could  come  out  here  tomorrow  evening 
(Saturday),  about  eight  o'clock,  to  have  a  talk. 
Write  if  you  cannot,  and  I  will  then  send  you  your 

drawings  on  Monday.  ^     , 

°  ^  1  ruly  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 

(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

March,  1856) 

My  dear  Ward, 

Look  out  at  the  Architectural  Museum,  Canon 
Row,  Westminster  (where  the  fly-leaf  of  this  note 

[53] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

will  get  you  admission)  a  pretty,  not  too  difficult, 
cast  of  a  leaf.  Pack  it  nicely,  and  send  it  to  Miss 
Agnes  Harrison,  Elmhurst,  Upton,  Essex. 
With  it  send  a  copy,  consisting  of  a  little  bit  of 
cast,  drawn  with  the  brush,  in  grey,  not  in  sepia, 
three  times  over.  The  first,  to  show  how  to  begin ; 
the  second,  carried  further;  the  third,  finished. 
Explain,  as  well  as  you  can  in  a  letter,  the  mode 
of  working.    A  very  little  hit  will  do. 

I  have  told  Miss  Harrison  that  she  is  to  pay 
you  two  shillings  a  letter,  of  course  returning  your 
drawing  when  done  with,  which  will  then  do  for 
other  pupils.  You  will  keep  a  note  of  expenses 
of  packing,  etc.  She  will  write  to  you,  with  her 
copies,   for   further  instruction.* 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

How  did  you  get  on  the  other  night?  Monday 
or  Tuesday  will  do  for  Miss  H(arrison)'s  letter. 

*  Here  we  have  an  early  attempt  to  do  what  is  now-a-days 
known  as  College  Extension  Work.  In  drawing  it  has  not 
gone  far.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  ever  will.  But  in  this  letter, 
as  in  the  preceding,  such  specific  and  simple  prescriptions  for 
teacher  and  pupil,  whether  in  each  other's  presence  or  not, 
are  a  model  of  good  method ;  a  whole  rule  of  pedagogy,  theory 
and  practice  alike. 

[54] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
1856) 
My  dear  Ward, 

Consider,  and  tell  me  at  the  tea  meeting,  if  there 
is  any  objection  now — on  your  part — to  being 
named  in  a  little  book  of  mine,*  just  coming  out, 
as  a  person  to  whom  reference  may  be  made  for 
first  lessons,  copies,  etc. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  R(uskin) 
If  you  make  up  your  mind  at  once,  you  can  let 
me  know  at  once. 


(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

1857) 
Dear  Ward, 

I  have  no  doubt  that  you  will  draw  landscape 
very  beautifully;  both  because  I  know  your  care- 
fulness and  feeling,  and  because  you  so  entirely 
understand  the  Turnerian  character;  very  few  peo- 
ple perceive  it  in  that  way.  You  are  quite  right 
about  that  character  of  inimitable,  unattainable 

*  The  "Elements  of  Drawing." 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

inspiration.    There  is  nothing  quite  like  it,  that  I 
know  of,  in  Art. 

My  book*  for  beginners  actually  goes  in  to  the 
publishers  tomorrow,  and  will  not  take  long  to 
print.  Don't  be  discouraged.  I  have  tried  your 
patience  sadly,  but  hold  out  for  two  months  more. 

I  must  have  a  talk  with  you  some  day  soon, 
before  term  opens.  I  will  write  to  you  when  I 
can  see  you. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Blair  Athol, 
August  22nd,    1857 

My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  very  glad  you  have  got  the  Turners,  and 
like  them.    I  have  told  Allen  to  pay  for  them. 

I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  live  in  the  way  you 
enjoy;  indeed,  I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  But  all  en- 
joyments become  mixed  with  pain  eventually,  how- 
ever our  life  may  be  occupied;  and  there  is  a  cer- 
tain enjoyment  resulting  from  escape  from  what  is 
irksome  to  us,  which  is  itself  worth  much. 

Most  truly   yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  The  "Elements  of  Drawing." 

[56] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD. 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

November   i^th,    1857 

Dear  Ward, 

Whatever  you  do,  don't  strain  your  eyes.  I  hope 
to  be  able  to  help  you  soon.  I  certainly  shall  be 
able  to  do  so  some  time  next  year;  how  soon  de- 
pends on  how  people  like  my  book,  a  good  deal. 
But  keep  your  mind  easy;  I  will  certainly  get  you, 
someway,  out  of  your  present  position, — but  if 
you  hurt  your  eyes  with  candlelight  work,  you 
would  put  it  out  of  my  power.  I  know  now  what 
you  can  do,  and  would  almost  as  soon  that  till 
Christmas  you  did  nothing. 

Truly  yours, 
J.   RUSKIN 

I  have  crippled  myself  this  year  by  giving  a 
larger  sum  to  Oxford  Museum. 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

{circa  1857  or  1858) 

My  dear  Ward, 

Send  a  delicate  study  of  leaves,  to  Mr.  Thos. 
Dixon,*  foot  of  Mill  St.,  Sunderland.    The  study 

*  It  was  to  this  Mr.  Dixon  that  Ruskin  addressed  the 
series  of  letters  published  in  1867  under  the  title  of  ''Time  and 
Tide  by  Weare  and  Tyne." 

[57] 


:   it.    /-JO-HN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

to  be  in  grey  colour;  with  a  word  or  two  of  explan- 
ation of  the  way  to  work  the  colour  with  the  point. 
Keep  an  account  against  me  for  postage,  and  for 
the  price  of  every  letter — which  I  arranged  the 
student  should  pay — when  I  tell  you  to  send  let- 
ters to  people  who  cannot  afiford  the  payment. 

Yours  truly  always, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
January  2^th,  1858 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  will  bring  a  cheque  for  ten  pounds  with  me 
to  the  college  on  Thursday — which  will  be  due  to 
you  from  New  Year's  day  for  six  weeks  and  a  bit 
— which  please  keep  account  of. 

Don't  make  any  appointment  for  Friday  or  Sat- 
urday, but  come  to  Marlborough  House,  as  I  want 
to  employ  you  there  on  some  drawings*  for  me. 
But  call  as  soon  as  possible  between  ten  and  eleven, 
morning,  on  Mrs.  La  Touche,  10  Great  Cumber- 

*  At  this  time  Turner's  pictures  and  drawings  were  on 
exhibition  at  Marlborough  House, 

[58] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

land  St.    She  wishes  you  to  teach  her  daughter.* 
Draw  the  ball  with  her  first — then  casts. 

Truly  yours  always, 

J.   RUSKIN 
Be  at  Marlborough  House  next  Friday  morn- 
ing, at  eleven  o'clock,  with  some  pencils — lamp 
black — and  pen — and  white  paper  on  small  boards, 
a  foot  or  so  square — and  wait  till  I  come. 

Rheinfelden, 

May  2i,rd,  1858. 

Dear  Ward, 

I  have  your  sketches,  which  are  quite  what  I 
want. 

If  a  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Beeby  writes  to  you  from 
Croydon,  will  you  be  so  good  as  to  give  her  what 
help  you  can,  without  making  any  charge.  She 
wants  to  teach  drawing  in  our  way,  and  seems  to  me 
a  deserving  person. 

Please  make  for  me  another  outline  of  that  Gen- 
eva^ at  Marlborough  House,  and  send  it  to  me  by 
post  as  soon  as  you  can.  Make  it  on  thin  paper, 
dip  it  in  boiling  milk,  and  send  it  folded  in  a  let- 
ter.    I'll  put  it  to  rights  here.     If  you  send  it  to- 

*  Miss  Rose  La  Touche.     See  Praeterita. 

t  A  pencil  drawing  by  Turner  in  the  National  Gallery. 

[59] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

morrow  week,   direct:   Poste  Restante,   Schwytz, 
Switzerland. 

Always  truly  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 


Baumgarten, 
May  zM,  1858 

My  dear  Ward, 

Please  put  stamps  on,  and  forward,  enclosed 
letters;  and  I  think  if  you  put  up  the  other  leaf  of 
this  in  an  envelope,  address  it  to  Mr.  Wornum,* 
and  deliver  it  yourself,  he  will  allow  you  to  make 
a  copy  (Plates  III,  IV)  for  me  of  parts  of  two  of 
the  Naples  outlines, — one  with  a  temple  on  right, 
with  goats,  and  Indian  fig  trees, — and  another  with 
a  stone  pine  under  the  town — so.  Make  me  first  the 
bit  of  the  upper  one,  with  trees  and  rocks  in  mid- 
dle distance,  and  send  it  me  as  soon  as  ever  you  can 
to  Poste  Restante,  Lucerne.  If  you  have  anything 
to  ask  me  in  answer  to  this,  a  letter  would  find  me 
at  Bellinzona,  Canton  Tessin,  Switzerland. 

(J.  RUSKIN) 

*  Ralph  Nicholson  Wornum,  keeper  of  the  National  Gallery. 


[60] 


^ 


-U 


■-1 


] 


^ 


i  n  ^ 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Bellizona, 
Switzerland, 
June  zist,  1858 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  your  letter  with  the  sketch  of  Geneva, 
which  is  very  nice,  and  useful  to  me.  I  do  not 
know,  however,  if  you  got  a  letter  requesting  you 
to  do  some  Naples  subjects  for  me — or  whether 
Mr.  Wornum  gave  you  leave  to  copy  them.*  He 
speaks  in  a  letter  I  have  today  of  looking  over  the 
Naples  subjects  for  you,  so  I  hope  it  is  all  right. 
But  please  send  me  a  line  addressed  Poste  Rest- 
ante,  Bellinzona,  and  tell  me  all  about  what  is 
going  on.  And  please  bear  apologies  from  me, 
respectfully,  to  Miss  Helps  for  my  carelessness 
in  not  leaving  out  the  Libers^f  as  I  said  I  would. 
I  was  so  driven  the  last  day  that  I  left  (as  you 
know)  very  important  documents  of  my  own  be- 
hind me,  and  on  the  morning  of  starting  I  locked 
up  everything  in  a  heap  where  no  one  can  get  at 
them.  Those  I  left  with  you  are  for  your  pupils 
generally,  and  I  wish  you  to  have  them  in  service 

*  Pencil  drawings  by  Turner  In  the  National  Gallery.  See 
preceding  letter. 

t  Plates  of  Turner's  Liber  Studlorum,  or  book  of  landscape 
subjects  etched  and  mezzotinted  by  himself  and  others  after 
his  own  drawings  in  pen  and  sepia  wash. 

[61] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

as  much  as  you  can;  so  that  you  must  ask  Miss 
Helps  to  be  kind  enough  to  choose  one,  and  finish 
working  from  that,  and  then  exchange  it  for  an- 
other; as  I  left  you  quite  few  enough  for  your 
work.  And  so  with  all  your  pupils;  you  had  bet- 
ter lend  one  only  at  a  time, — it  gains  better  atten- 
tion for  it. 

I  shall  be  able  to  answer  anything  you  want  to 
ask  me  by  return  of  post,  if  you  send  your  letter  to 
Bellinzona  within  a  couple  of  days  after  receiving 
this. 

Send  me  word  especially  how  we  stand  in  money 

Yours  always  faithfully, 

J.  RUSKIN 

P.  S. — I  have  just  got  a  letter  from  Mr.  Wornum 
involving  some  more  business. 

Please  go  to  Mr.  Rudland,  at  Marlborough 
House.  I  don't  know  if  he  has  got  rid  of  the  pack- 
ets of  my  old  Catalogue*  by  sending  them  any- 
where, but  I  suppose  not.  Please  take  them  away 
with  you,  and  put  them  into  any  cellar  or  lumber 

*  The  "old  Catalogue"  is  the  first  edition  of  Ruskin's  "Cat- 
alogue of  the  Sketches  and  Drawings  by  J.  M.  W.  Turner, 
R.  A.  exhibited  in  Marlborough  House,"  published  in  1857. 
The  "new  Catalogue"  is  the  second,  enlarged  edition,  published 
in  1858. 

[62] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

room.  I  want  you  to  be  able  to  get  at  them,  because 
the  prefatory  remarks  may  be  generally  useful  to 
your  pupils;  and  to  other  people  to  whom  I  may 
want  to  send  one,  now  and  then. 

Ask  Mr.  Rudland,  also,  how  the  new  Catalogue 
is  selling;  if  he  has  made  any  progress  with  his 
first  batch,  and  is  likely  to  want  some  more.  Send 
me  one  of  the  Catalogues  here  instantly,  as  I  must 
look  it  over  before  any  more  are  printed.  Send  it 
to  Poste  Restante,  Bellinzona. 

J.  R. 

Please  call  at  4  Russell  Place,  Fitzroy  Square. 
Enquire  for  Miss  Hill,*  and  ask  her  to  write  a 
line  to  me  at  the  above  address. 

Also — find  out  Butterworth;t  he  was  last  stay- 
ing at  2  Cold  Harbour  Place,  Camberwell.  Give, 
or  send,  him  the  enclosed  note. 

*  Miss  Octavia  Hill,  one  of  Ruskin's  pupils  in  drawing  and 
a  believer  in  his  philanthropic  schemes  who  helped  him  reclaim 
some  lower-class  dwellings  in  London,  by  improving  the  prop- 
erty, giving  the  tenants  fixity  of  tenure  and  requiring  in  re- 
turn only  a  reasonable  and  moderate  rent. 

t  George  Butterworth — a  carpenter  whom  Ruskin  be- 
friended and  set  to  drawing, 


[63] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

borromean  islands, 
Lago  Maggiore,  Italy 
July  gth,  1858 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  now  received  all  your  letters,  and  am 
much  obliged  for  all  you  have  done. 

I  like  the  piece  of  Naples  outline  v^ell,  but  it 
has  failed  in  some  important  way  in  the  piece  of 
foliage  in  the  centre.  Please  do  that  bit  over  again 
with  intense  care,  and  send  it  me. 

Your  corrections  of  the  Catalogue  are  all  quite 
true  and  useful.  The  Okehampton  is  a  great  mis- 
take; I  intended  to  change  the  drawings,  and  for- 
got to  do  so.  The  Carew  Castle  mistake  (until 
I  get  a  new  Catalogue  prepared,  which  I  will  im- 
mediately) may  be  a  little  mended  by  your  going 
up  to  Mr.  Halsted's,*  in  Bond  St.,  and  getting  a 
print  of  Carew  Castle — or  proof  if  he  has  no 
print — telling  him  to  put  it  to  my  account.  Get 
a  decent  portable  frame  for  it,  and  give  it  to  Mr. 
Rudlandt  to  show — or  nail  up — as  he  thinks  best. 
If  Halsted  has  not  a  print,  enquire  before  buying 
a  proof  at  any  of  the  other  print-shops;  the  old 

*  A  well-known  dealer  in  Turner  prints, 
t  He  was  a  curator  of  the  Turner  collection  exhibited  at 
Marlborough  House. 

[64] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Wardour  St.  ones  often  have  these  things.  A 
print  is  quite  as  good  (if  neatly  mounted  it  often 
gives  a  better  idea  of  the  drawing  than  a  proof) 
for  all  that  is  wanted.  If  you  buy  a  proof,  don't 
cut  its  margin, — if  you  buy  a  print,  cut  its  mar- 
gin, and  give  it  a  raised  mount  like  the  drawings. 
Write  to  me  to  say  if  you  have  this  to  Poste 
Restante, 

Arona, 

Lago  Maggiore, 
Italy. 

Nothing  can  be  better  than  all  you  are  doing; 
I  am  glad  to  hear  of  the  coloured  study. 

You  may  comfort  the  young  lady  whose  hand 
runs  away  with  her  by  telling  her  that  when  once 
she  has  bridled  it,  properly,  she  will  find  many 
places  where  she  can  give  it  a  pleasant  canter — 
or  even  put  it  to  speed — in  sketching  from  nature. 
But  it  must  be  well  bitted  (braceletted,  perhaps, 
would  be  a  better  word)  at  first. 

Always  most  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


[65] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

December    i/\.th,    1858 

Dear  Ward, 

I'm  very  glad  to  hear  Dr.  Watson's  report, 
though  I  had  little  doubt  about  the  matter  before. 

You  may  take  a  holiday  immediately,  if  you  can 
leave  your  wife;  any  little  extra  expense  I  will 
meet.  Is  there  any  place  you  have  a  fancy  to  go 
to?  You  can  cut  teaching  for  a  little,  and  learn  to 
walk. 

I've  got  the  Liber, 

Send  me  word  what  you'd  like  to  do.  If  you're 
inclined  for  a  go,  come  out  tomorrow  evening 
about  eight  o'clock  and  we'll  have  a  talk.  Bring 
the  best  Libers  with  you,  as  it's  no  use  leaving  them 
in  town  when  you're  out  of  it. 

Yours  always, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
Xmas,  1858 
Dear  Ward, 

I'm  very  glad  of  your  letter:  you'll  come  all 
right  now.    I'll  send  you  some  money  soon. 

[66] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Many  pleasant  Xmases  to  you.  Don't  draw  too 
much;  take  plenty  of  exercise.  I'm  very  glad  it's 
so  nice  a  place.*  I  don't  call  cliffs  200  feet  high 
insignificant, — in  the  Alps  I  should  call  one  dimin- 
utive that  was  under  1,500.  The  last  I  saw  there 
ran  up  9,000  in  a  great  concave.  But  a  200  one  is 
as  ^Significant'' — if  you  have  feeling  for  it! 

Yours  affectionately, 

J.    R(USKIN) 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

1859 
My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  very  sorry  you  came  here  without  telling  me, 
as  I  intended  you  to  have  stopped  till  you  had  got 
really  better.     Mind  what  you're  about  now\ 

IVe  got  leave  from  Mr.  Huntf  for  you  to  see 
him  paint.  I'll  give  you  six  lessons, — that  is  to 
say,  six  hours  to  sit  by  him  (for  you'll  find  he  can't 

*  Tenby,  in  South  Wales.  My  father  had  been  suffering 
from  nervous  exhaustion,  and  was  staying  there  to  recruit 
his  health.    W.  C.  W. 

t  William  Hunt,  famous  for  his  water  colour  drawings  of 
still  life  subjects. 

[67] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

tell  you  anything),  as  soon  as  he  comes  back  to 
town  in  two  or  three  weeks. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
February  ^th,  i860 

Dear  Ward, 

Do  not  sacrifice  principle  in  any  way  at  pres- 
ent to  school  teaching.  Be  simply  firm  in  stating 
what  can,  and  what  must,  be  done,  and  reject  the 
pupils  who  will  not  work.  No  music  master 
would  proceed  with  pupils  who  would  not  prac- 
tise. 

You  may  give  Prout,*  and  large  pen  and  ink  out- 
lines, in  conjunction  with  the  pen  and  ink  finished 
practice.  But  you  must  maintain  the  system  firmly. 
I  quite  understand  the  disappointment  of  the  par- 
ents, and  I  do  not  think  at  present  any  principal 
of  a  school  can  introduce  the  right  system.  But 
you  must  simply  give  up  the  school. 

*  Samuel  Prout,  an  artist  famous  for  his  pencil  drawings 
and  lithographs  of  architectural  subjects,  especially  later  medi- 
aeval architecture. 

[68] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Have  a  little  more  patience ;  things  will  go  bet- 
ter by  and  bye. 

I  hope  to  see  you  tomorrow. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

October  ist,  i860 

Dear  Ward, 

Come  any  evening  you  like.  Those  drawings 
by  Miss  Dundas*  are  wonderful — can't  well  be 
better,  except  outline  a  little  hard.  Has  she  ex- 
amined Hunt  well  in  this  respect?  The  landscapes 
I  will  talk  to  you  about.  If  she  comes  to  town  I 
should  like  to  see  her;  I  can  perhaps  shew  her 
something  about  landscape  which  will  save  her 
trouble.  She  don't  seem  to  me  to  care  enough 
about  it  to  bring  out  her  strength.  Her  sense  of 
colour  is  superb — she  ought  never  to  work  but 
in  colour,  and  pencil  outline;  she  needn't  do  chi- 
aroscuro separate  from  colour. 

Come  any  evening  about  half  past  seven  o'clock. 

I'm  so  glad  you  like  those  economy  papers.t 

*  Pupil  in  drawing. 

t  They  formed  Unto  this  Last.  At  this  time  they  were 
appearing  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine. 

[69] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

The  next  will  be  a  smasher, — I'm  only  afraid  they 
won't  put  it  in.  If  they  don't,  I'll  print  it  sep- 
arate. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 
December  ijth,  i860 

Dear  Ward, 

I've  told  Allen*  all  about  the  drawings  he  has 
to  shew  for  examples  of  sketching. 

Of  the  Turners,  make  him  give  you  especially 
the  body  colours  out  of  table  on  my  right  hand. 
The  Rouen  and  Yarmouth  storms  in  that  series 
are  the  most  instructive  drawings  perhaps  in  the 
house. 

But  if  the  Misses  Dundas  can  manage  to  come  on 
Wednesday  instead,  I'll  be  home  by  then  (though 
they  should  come  before  to  see  the  drawings)  and 
on  Thursday,  would  stay  at  home  for  them. 

If  you  don't  come  tomorrow,  write  both  to  Allen 
here,  and  to  me  care  of 

*  George  Allen,  engraver  and  subsequently  Ruskin^s  pub- 
lisher. 

[70] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

The  Earl  of  Lovelace, 

Worsley  Towers, 

Ripley, 
Surrey, 

to  say  if  Wednesday  or  Thursday,  as  I  needn't 
hurry  home  if  the  young  ladies  are  away  to  Nice. 

Yours  affectionately, 
J.  R(USKIN) 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

December  ijth,  i860 

Dear  Ward, 

It  is  a  great  disappointment  and  vexation  to  me 
not  to  see  the  Misses  Dundas;  but  I  suppose  it 
can't  be  helped.  I  shall  be  back  on  Wednesday. 
If  they  could  delay  their  journey  a  day  and  come 
on  Thursday,  I  could  keep  the  whole  middle  of 
the  day,  or  early  morning,  for  them.  But  if  not, 
bring  them  out  on  Tuesday,  by  all  means.  I  have 
left  orders  with  Crawley*  to  shew  anything  and 
everything;  and  among  the  rest  a  series  of  sketches 
by  Turner;  and  some  (not  quite  so  discouraging!) 
of  my  own,  as  examples  of  various  modes  of  sketch- 

*  Ruskln's  valet  for  twenty  years. 

[71] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

ing  from  nature.     I've  numbered  them,  and  left 
a  list,  written. 

Thanks  for  pamphlet.*  But  it  is  too  mystical, 
and  repeats  itself  too  much.  I  have  no  idea  what 
it  means;  and  am  none  the  wiser  for  the  preface. 

Most  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 
February  22nd,  1861 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  will  furnish  the  materials — i.e.,  paper,  pencils, 
casts — but  not  drawing-boards  or  other  apparatus 
of  room  furniture.  I  think  long  tables,  and  rough 
boards  with  a  prop,  will  do  well  enough. 

Take  this  note  with  you  to  Winsor  and  Newton's ; 
and  get  what  materials  you  want,  after  arranging 
with  Mr.  Robinst  about  tables — and  tell  them  to 
put  them  to  my  account. 

J.  RuSKiN 

*  A  pamphlet  On  the  Propagation  of  Evil  by  Generation, 
by  William  Ward,  father  of  the  William  to  whom  these  letters 
were  written. 

t  The  Rev.  C.  M.  Robins.  He  started  the  Colonnade 
Working  Men's  Club,  a  drawing  class  of  which  was  taught 
by  William  Ward  for  a  short  period. 

[72] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
May  2gth,  1861 
My  dear  Ward, 

If  you  can  bring  your  pupil  out  on  Monday, 
about  one  o'clock,  I  will  give  you  lunch,  and  you 
can  show  her  the  pictures.  I  have — as  you  know — 
given  up  ^^showing"  pictures  myself,  being  tired 
of  saying  the  same  things  again  and  again. 

Always  most  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Wm.  Ward,  Esq. 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
1862 


Dear  Ward, 

Best  thanks  for  letting  me  know  of  the  etchings.* 
I  would  gladly  give  2^  guineas  (which  I  believe 
is  the  trade  price)  plus  ten  shillings,  for  the 
Grenoble.^  I  can't  afford  to  buy  any  more;  wish 
I  could — but  I  get  requests  now  on  the  average 
for  about  fifty  pounds  a  week,  and  all  difficult  to 
refuse,  though  sometimes  necessary.  Your  credit 
won't  fail,  however.     I  enclose  5  pounds,  and  am 

always  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 
*  Turner's  Liber  Studiorum,  of  which  series  the  Chain  of 
Alps  from  Grenoble  to  Chamberi  is  one. 

[73] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

MORNEX, 
December  26th,  1862. 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  your  letter,  and  enclose  the  other  half 
note;  please  advise  me  of  receipt. 

Follow  the  lines  of  Prout  individually,  but 
draw  them  quickly;  as  quickly  as  you  suppose  he 
did.  Do  not  correct  mistakes;  but  make  as  few 
as  may  be.  The  Raphael  should  be  outlined  with 
pencil,  then  drawn  with  pen  at  once — and  again 
and  again. 

Gather  some  moss  and  grass,  and  outline  bits 
firmly  with  the  pen;  it  will  practise  you  in  com- 
plex lines.  You  may  use  black  shade  in  inter- 
stices. 

Shells,  drawn  with  pen,  are  good  practice  also. 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

MORNEX, 
2nd  Jan.,  1863. 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  yours  of  the  30th  and  am  glad  to  know 
the  reason  of  the  too  great  neatness.  It  is  not  a 
bad  fault — slovenliness  is  a  far  worse  one.  I 
must  try  and  form  your  taste  gradually.    Send  me 

[74] 


00 


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Q 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

anything  you  have  been  doing  lately  that  will  bear 
crushing. 

Your  perspective  question  is  very  simple.  The 
perspective  never  ^'gets  wrong,"  but  at  a  great 
height,  the  long  line  on  the  paper  represents  a 
short  one  to  the  eye.  Stand  close  to  your  window, 
and  looking  up,  trace  on  the  glass  any  retiring 
horizontal  line  high  above  you.  You  will  find  the 
tracing  run  down  a  whole  pane.  It  does  the  same 
on  paper,  and  seen  from  the  proper  point  of  sight 
appears  duly  short. 

I  wish  you  a  successful  year.  I  wish  I  could 
send  you  some  of  my  weather.  I  was  climbing  in 
the  snow  4000  ft.  above  sea  today,  but  in  soft  air, 
calm  frost — and  intense  sunshine  and  was  too  hot 
when  I  got  down  again. 

Airways  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

MORNEX, 
6th  Feb.,  1863 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  registering  a  parcel  to  6  Chandos  St., 
Covent  garden.  If  you  will  call  there  you  will 
find  Mr.  Davies  has  a  note  for  you,  with  £10 
cheque.    I  have  yours  and  the  little  drawings  safe. 

[75] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

You  must  try  and  get  simplicity  and  manliness 
now  in  execution.  Don't  shade  (Plate  V)  that 
wa>,  but  (Plate  VI)  that  way  for  some  time  to 
come.  Draw  your  shell  surfaces  as  firmly  as  that. 
Use  a  blunt  bad  pen  always  for  everything  now 
for  a  long  time. 

I  return  one  of  your  shells  with  a  few  touches. 
You  lose  all  your  labour  for  want  of  a  moment's 
audacity. 

Exercise,  with,  the  arms,  for  a  certain  steady 
time  every  day.  Washing  all  over  with  cold 
water,  and  diet  will  get  rid  of  that  giddiness,  and 
the  coarser  work,  all  the  better. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

The  Raphael  copies  not  steady  enough  yet. 


MORNEX, 

Switzerland, 
February  i^th,  1863 

My  dear  Ward, 

Try  4  Chandos  St.  Perhaps  there's  a  Chandos 
St.  Strand.  I  am  made  anxious  by  your  letter  for 
fear  something  has  gone  wrong  with  my  next 
paper  for  Fraser, 

[76] 


*-£e. 


r^ 


^o^. 


I 


Plate   VI 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Don't  cover  your   paper  so  with   lines.     Use 
fewer — and  think  about  them.     (Plate  VII). 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

MORNEX, 
March)  22d,  1863 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  will  look  over  your  drawings,  and  send  you 
instructions.  As  I  am  sending  to  Geneva  today 
I  send  your  cheque  at  once. 

Generally,  your  work  is  carelessly  or  rather 
thoughtlessly  fast.  Not  fast  by  economy  and  good 
placing  of  slow  line.  Your  shadows  are  (Plate 
VIII)  instead  of A  master's  shadows  are  in- 
deed as  fast  as  that  often,  but  in  learning  you  must 
be  steady. 

No  local  colour  at  present. 

Truly  yours, 

J.R. 

23 r^  May,  1863 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  did  not  answer  your  last  letter  for  there  is 
something  inexplicable  to  me  in  some  particular 

[77] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

deficiencies  in  your  work,  which  I  can't  deal  with 
in  writing.  I  think  when  I  get  home,  I  shall  set 
you  to  entirely  different  work,  namely,  copying  in 
colour;  delicately:  you  have  a  wonderful  gift  of 
delicate  handling,  and  I  want  to  turn  it  to  account. 
With  that  you  have  this. 

Poste  Restante,  Geneve;  Suisse. 

Always  faithfully  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Chamounix, 

September  2^th,  1863 
My  dear  Ward, 

Thanks  for  your  letter  and  account.  I  will  send 
you  your  money  now  more  regularly  (I  hope 
quite  regularly,  but  have  never  succeeded  in  ac- 
complishing entire  precision  yet  in  anything).  I 
am  glad  you  have  a  pupil  or  two  and  remain  in 
town.  I  shall  be  back  myself  at  the  end  of  No- 
vember, I  hope,  and  will  then  decide  about  the 
Turners, — but  it  depends  on  a  decision  of  the 
Trustees  of  the  National  Gallery  about  what  is  to 
be  done  with  them. 

Believe  me  always, 
Most  truly  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 
[78] 


k.al^    [r'*TcH?t3 


w^  ^-^--^  Vlr-  ^^  i^ 


16*-^ 


P  ..         .  (T      V —J     |c^JJ^^ 


(g:^li>..yK^ 


Plate  VII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  think  whatever  you  will  have  to  do  for  me 
will  be  quite  compatible  with  your  living  out  of 
town. 
Mr.  William  Ward, 

51  Elmore  Street, 

Islington,  N. 

{May  28,  1864) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  send  you  a  cheque  for  £25.  But  you  must  send 
me  some  of  the  best  of  your  bird  drawings  for  this, 
as  it  seems  to  me  by  this  time  you  ought  to  be  able 
to  make  something  by  selling  them,  and  if  you  do 
not  I  must  have  some,  as  I  only  left  you  them  in 
the  idea  of  your  being  able  to  get  on  a  little  sooner 
without  so  much  help.  I  could  not  call  on  Miss 
Dundas. 

I  have  been  out  of  town.  Edward  Jones*  is  a 
great  colourist  and  a  noble  painter — though  full  of 
faults. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Jth  January,  (1865) 
My  dear  Ward, 

Will  you  kindly  come  over  if  possible  on  Mon- 
day afternoon.     I  want  to  point  out  the  kind  of 

*  Sir  Edward'  Burne-Jones. 

[79] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

fault  which  shows  most  in  these  chalk  drawings. 
It  is  evidently  the  right  thing  for  you  to  do,  but 
you  must  try  and  be  tender  without  elaboration — 
easily. 

I'll  give  you  a  cheque  when  you  come. 
Ever  sincerely  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN, 
About  Yz  past  two 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
April  i6th,  1866 
My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  just  leaving  town  for  a  week  or  two,  being 
tired  and  ill.  I  can't  think  what  has  become  of 
your  rabbit*;  and  I've  given  up  all  lending  and 
teaching  now; — life's  getting  short  with  me,  and 
I  must  look  after  my  own  work. 

Miss  Dundas  is  quite  able  now  to  get  on  by  what 

she  will  see  in  exhibitions;  she  is  too  far  advanced 

to  need  other  help. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  Wm.  Ward, 

19,  Trafalgar  Sq., 

Twickenham,  S.  W. 

*  A  water  color  drawing  by  William  Ward. 

[80] 


V-        fi\ 


c.^0         urcaJl^      C^^'Ua<^      CA^^ — ^UrJU- 


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KWwc^     )luJ^  ^^  1^3 


■A^  M   tfVCA^ 


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Plate  VIII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

August  Sth,  1866 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  been  abroad,  and  my  friends  have  been 
dying  by  twos  and  threes  at  a  time,  and  I've  been 
nearly  dead  myself  too.  I'm  very  sorry  your  let- 
ter was  neglected. 

Here  are  ten  pounds,  and  I'll  see  you  soon. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Send  the  cash  account  to  me  after  getting  what 
else  you  want. 

Nov.  2nd,  1866 

My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  immensely  pleased.  I  Hope  you  will  be  able 
to  keep  pretty  closely  at  this  work  for  me.*  I'll 
make  arrangements  at  National  Gallery  directly. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  This  refers  to  Ward's  copying  of  Turner  drawings  in 
water  colour. 


[81] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Waterhead, 
Windermere, 
August  8th,  1867 

My  dear  Ward, 

The  two  drawings  are  safe  here,  and  I  am  much 
pleased  with  them,  on  the  whole ;  though  it  seems 
to  me  the  Marseilles  is  not  nearly  so  bright  in  the 
vermilion  as  Turner's.  I  knew  the  finer  condi- 
tions of  the  drawing  of  forms  to  be  impossible  of 
imitation,  but  I  thought  you  would  get  these  quite 
vivid  colours  matched. 

The  sea  is,  however,  remarkably  well  done — 
and  I  expected  that  to  fail;  and  the  form  drawing 
is  more  appreciated  and  more  rightly  done,  as  far 
as  it  is  achieved,  than  in  any  hitherto  produced 
work  of  yours. 

So  on  with  good  courage,  and  don't  relax  in 
effort  to  make  every  drawing  better  than  the  last! 
The  more  I  look  at  this,  the  better  I  like  it.  It  is 
seen  to  great  disadvantage  without  its  mount;  and 
as  I  had  a  fifteen  mile  walk  yesterday,  including 
a  climb  of  3,000  feet  (Helvellyn),  and  one  up 
Skiddaw  the  day  before,  and  had  it  unexpectedly 
and  severely  hot  for  the  last  five  miles  yesterday, 
I'm  not  quite  fresh  this  morning;  and  one  never 
sees  colour  quite  so  bright  when  one  is  not  quite 

[82] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

fresh.  But  I  am  nearly  certain  the  sail  is  not  so 
vivid  as  Turner's.  The  other  drawing  is  wonder- 
fully good,  and  both  are  great  possessions  to  me. 
Send  me  word  of  your  health.  I  should  like  to 
get  a  little  total  rest  and  change,  before  the  winter 
comes  on. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 
(Address   still: — Post  Office,    Ambleside,    West- 
moreland.) 
I  am  still  better  and  better  pleased  with  the 
Marseilles,  as  I  examine  the  fine  touches  with  a 
lens.    The  ship  on  the  right  is  excellent  in  switch 
of  yard,  and  general  form.     I  think  there  is  no 
doubt  but  you  may  soon  command  sale  for  these 
copies,  with  my  certificate;  still  I  never  yet  could 
judge  of  the  public  mind. 

The  minglings  of  blue  and  purple  are  lovely. 

William  Ward 

Ambleside, 
Westmoreland, 
August  nth,  1867 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  think  all  you  say  is  so  very  nice  (and  it  makes 
me  hope  more  and  more)  about  the  colour  and  the 

[83] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 


"go."     I  will  give  you  the  means  for  a  little  holi- 
day if  you  like  to  have  one. 

I'll  write  tomorrow.  I'm  tired  today,  and  have 
several  things  to  say — which  I  shall  say  better  by 
waiting  a  day. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

(Ambleside, 
Westmoreland) 

August  I2th,  1867 

My  dear  Ward, 

Write  ^'Derwentwater  Inn,  Keswick,"  telling 
me  if  you  think  a  rest  in  the  country  would  do  you 
good.  I  think  you  should  not  draw,  but  walk,  and 
rest,  and  eat,  just  as  you  feel  inclined ;  only,  when 
you  are  kept  indoors  by  wet,  practising  such  out- 
line drawing  as  will  not  make  you  nervous  or  anx- 
ious, but  will  confirm  your  hand.  It  ought  to  be 
as  unagitating  as  the  practice  of  writing. 

Yet,  if  you  feel  that  you  would  be  better  for 
some  work  from  nature,  I  could  suggest  some 
which  would  shew  you  what  Turner  meant,  I 
think  a  tour  up  or  down  the  Meuse  would  be 
highly  useful  to  you,  and  to  me.  Suppose  you  go 
and  look  at  Luxemburg!  The  fortress  you  are 
now  drawing?    And  then  walk  up  the  bank  of  the 

[84] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Meuse,  and  draw  Dinant  for  me;  the  one  you  did 
the  yellow  sunset  of?* 

I  think  you  ought  to  fix  your  mind  on  this  Tur- 
ner work  quite  as  the  thing  you  have  to  do.  You 
know  me  well  enough  to  trust  me  that  I  do  not 
say  this  to  keep  you  captive  for  my  own  purposes. 
If  I  thought  you  could  be  a  successful  artist,  I 
would  not  let  you  copy.  But  I  think  your  art  gifts 
are  very  like  mine;  perfect  sense  of  colour,  great 
fineness  of  general  perception,  and  hardly  any  in- 
vention. You  might  succeed  in  catching  the  pub- 
lic with  some  mean  fineness  of  imitation,  and  live 
a  useless,  though  pecuniarily,  successful  life;  but 
even  that  would  be  little  likely.  Whereas  in  ren- 
dering Turner,t  you  will  live  a  useful  life;  and 
I  think  very  probably,  a  highly  prosperous  one. 

Always  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

*  The  Fortress  of  Luxemburg  and  the  Sunset  at  Dinant  are 
Turner  drawings  which  my  father  copied.     W.  C.  W. 

t  'The  work  was  both  close  and  trying,  and  the  copies  pro- 
duced were  minutely  examined  by  Mr.  Ruskin  with  lens  and 
compasses.  But  I  learned  more  of  the  marvellous  subtleties 
of  Turner,  and  of  nature  than  would  have  been  possible  by 
any  other  means."  By  this  time,  1867,  the  Turner  copying 
was  well  in  hand.  It  is  instructive  from  the  point  of  view 
of  draughtsmanship  and  the  mastery  of  colour  which  Ward's 
later  work  shows,  to  consider  carefully  the  sort  of  training 
which,  up  to  this  time,  these  letters  show  him  to  have  received. 

[85] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Denmark  Hill, 
Monday,  i^th  Aug.  (1867) 

My  dear  Ward, 

Please  come  tomorrow  at  12.  Everything  shall 
be  then  settled  so  that  you  and  Allen  may  start  as 
soon  as  you  please  afterward. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 


Keswick, 
15/A  August,  1867 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  will  write  you  a  long  (or  sufficiently  long)  let- 
ter this  evening.  Your  work  unquestionably 
should  be  copying,  and  I  have  no  doubt  it  will  be 
highly  remunerative.  But  to  copy  rightly  you 
must  continually  draw  from  nature  also.*  Of 
which  more  tonight. 

Yours  ever  faithfully, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  A  thing  little  done  by  copyists  and,  even  when  they  have 
respectable  powers,  the  reason  for  the  general  inferiority  of 
their  work. 


[86] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Keswick, 
August  i^th,  1867, 

Evening 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  glad  that  you  feel  disposed  to  work  a 
little  during  your  holiday,  it  will  be  best  so  every 
way. 

The  reason  copying  has  been  (justly)  despised 
is  that  people  have  never  done  it  but  for  money 
only,  and  have  never  therefore  given  their  hearts 
to  it.  I  have  known  one  or  two  exceptions  (and 
those  have  been  generally  ladies)  happy  and  use- 
ful in  their  work, — see  note  at  end. 

To  copy  Turner,  and  any  one  else  rightly,  you 
must  always  know  what  he  means;  and  this  re- 
quires constant  looking  at  nature  from  his  point 
of  view.  There  is  no  degradation  in  doing  this 
any  more  than  in  letting  him,  if  he  were  alive, 
teach  you.  For  instance,  your  own  point  of  view, 
or  De  Wint's,  or  Constable's  of  a  tree  might  relate 
only  to  the  green  of  its  leaves,  their  quantity.  Tur- 
ner might  disregard  the  colour,  and  imagine  half 
the  leaves  gone  from  the  branches  in  autumn  in 
order  to  express  the  grace  and  anatomy  of  the 
limbs.  All  these  views  are  natural, — but  in  look- 
ing at  nature  with  a  view  to  illustrate  the  work  of 

[87] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

any  given  Master,  you  must  look  at  her  not  ^^with 
his  eyes'  (which  you  cannot,  and  should  not)  but 
from  his  place,  and  to  his  purpose.  It  will  do  you 
great  good  to  see  more  clearly  what  Turner  means 
by  those  odd  touches  and  scratches  in  his  outlines 
of  French  towns  and  fortresses,  and  to  see  the  char- 
acter of  the  scenes  he  tried  to  render. 

You  and  Allen  are  on  good  enough  terms,  are 
you  not?  I  should  like  to  send  you  together;  for 
I  want  him  to  engrave  your  drawings,  and  I  should 
like  you  both  to  make  memoranda  on  the  spot  of 
the  important  features  in  scenes  of  Turner's  views. 

For  instance,  in  that  Dinant  with  yellow  sun, — 
I  should  like  you  to  outline  the  two  churches  and 
bridge,  and  any  of  the  more  interesting  houses  in 
the  towns,  from  the  Turner  point, — as  near  as  you 
could  guess  it.     (Plate  IX.) 

Luxemburg  I  believe  you  can  do  nothing  at, 
the  sentinels  would  stop  you  instantly.  Turner 
could  draw  with  his  hands  in  his  coat-tails,  or 
while  the  sentinel  walked  the  other  way;  but  you 
cannot,  and  need  not  go  out  of  your  way  to  see  it; 
but  if  it  comes  easily  into  plan  of  tour,  take  it. 

I  hope  to  be  at  home  by  the  24th,  and  I  should 
like  to  see  Allen  and  you,  and  that  you  should  start 
in  the  following  week.    I've  no  letter  from  Allen 

[88] 


^^:i^  ^    ^^Lc/-  sZ) 


'Vcl^         ^piJJU^i^        hu.^     ,  .  J 


.^Ccrv-JUl 


Q^ 


^ 


Plate  IX 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

yet  in  answer  to  one  I  wrote  on  the  subject.  As 
soon  as  I  receive  it,  I  will  think  over  the  best  plan 
of  tour,  and  write  to  you  again. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
If  I  had  to  make  my  own  bread,  I  should  at 
once  endeavour  to  get  employment  in  copying  the 
great  Italian  frescos — while  at  least  half  my  time 
would  then  be  spent  in  anatomical  and  other 
studies  from  nature;  and  I  should  feel  myself  quite 
usefully  and  rightly  employed  putting  my  whole 
energy  into  the  business.  I  should  do  so,  even 
now,  with  far  more  satisfaction  to  myself  than  my 
present  desultory  work,  of  teaching  in  various 
ways,  gives  me ;  but  I  do  not  feel  justified  in  aban- 
doning intellectual  labour  altogether,  or  giving  up 
the  rudder  which  is  in  my  hand. 


(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E.) 
September  ith,  1867, 

Sunday 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  got  both  your  letters  yesterday;  they  gave  me 
much  pleasure.     I  was  sure  you  would  enjoy  the 

[89] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Meuse,  and  the  Flemish  architecture;  and,  for  my 
own  part,  I  can  assure  you  that  though  for  general 
enjoyment  in  natural  beauty,  and  for  exercise,  I 
go  to  Switzerland;  for  purposes  of  art,  I  should 
rarely  go  beyond  the  French  and  Flemish  land- 
scape and  buildings.  A  river  is,  in  most  of  its  cir- 
cumstances, far  more  picturesque  than  any  lake. 
You  get  tnjuo  shores  dovetailed  together,  instead  of 
a  single  independent  one  with  an  horizon-line; 
and  the  motion  of  the  water,  and  traffic,  furnish 
endless  incident. 

You  will  be  much  struck  with  Huy.  But  it  has 
been  often  drawn,  and  need  not  long  detain  you. 
Give  me  a  good  account  of  the  river  above  Dinant, 
if  it  is  interesting;  it  is  little  known. 

I  am  very  glad  you  get  on  so  nicely  together.  I 
will  give  what  strength  I  have  this  winter  to  giv- 
ing you  both  fair  start  in  this  Turner  work. 

Details  of  windows,  roofs,  boats,  and  the  like, 
will  not  bother  you  like  whole  landscape;  and  will 
explain  much  of  Turner's  obscure  work. 

Write  to  me  often,  but  it  need  not  be  more  than 
a  word  or  two,  telling  me  how  you  get  on.  Of 
course,  when  a  wet  day  comes,  I  should  like  to 
have  more.    Allen's  letter  also  highly  pleasing. 


[90] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

With  regards  to  you  both, 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  William  Ward, 
Poste  Restante, 
Dinant  (Meuse), 
Belgium. 

Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 
September  iSth,  1867 

Dear  Ward, 

I  sent  you  a  line  yesterday  to  post  ofBce,  Dinant; 
and  today  I  had  yours  from  Dinant,  which  gives 
me  great  pleasure  (you  could  not  have  had  an- 
swer on  9th  to  yours  of  6th).  I've  sent  the  cheque 
to  your  wife,  and,  if  you  find  the  work  is  doing 
you  both  good,  you  need  not  watch  the  decline  of 
your  funds  anxiously,  as  I  am  quite  ready  to  pro- 
long your  stay  somewhat,  if  you  feel  it  would  be 
right  that  I  should. 

You  cannot  enjoy  Turner's  "fairy"  work  too 
much.    That  is  divine  to  the  very  day  of  his  death. 

But  haste — weariness — Death,  in  its  widest 
sense,  as  it  begins  to  seize  on  what  is  called  old 
age — all  the  effects  of  solitude,  of  absence  of  all 

[91] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

human  sympathy  and  understanding;  and  finally 
sensuality  proceeding  clearly  from  physical  dis- 
ease of  the  brain,  are  manifest  to  me  in  those  later 
works  in  a  degree  which  is  proportionate  to  my 
increasing  reverence  and  worship  of  the  divine 
fact  of  them. 

Allen  is  not  to  be  jealous  of  my  writing  to  you 
instead  of  him; — if  he  has  any  geological  or  other 
questions  to  answer  he  shall  have  his  turn. 

I  have  no  idea  what  that  Dinant  Rock  is.  Chalk, 
I  imagined,  but  am  not  sure. 

You  have  two  important  views  to  analyze  then ; 
one  mine  in  which  I  imagine  the  houses  and  the 
cliff  are  fine  in  detail,  and  the  other  the  amber 
sunset. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

(Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

October  loth,  1867) 

My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  afraid  you've  been  plaguing  the  post  office 
in  vain ;  but  I  wanted  to  say  a  good  deal,  and  now 
can  say  nothing,  except  to  send  me  word  directly 
what  state  the  houses  are  in,  under  the  cathedral, 

[92] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

in  the  street  between  south  transept  and  west  front 
— if  any  are  left. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 
J.  R(uskin) 
Ask  tomorrow — I'll  try  and  send  another  line. 
Mr.  W.  Ward, 
Poste  Restante, 
Rouen,  (France) 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

October  I2th,  1867 

My  dear  Ward, 

This  is  only  to  keep  you  in  countenance  with  the 
Poste  Restante, 

Send  me  anything  you  have  done,  as  soon  as  you 
can,  and  I'll  see  how  you  are  getting  on.  There 
are  still  marvellous  bits  here  and  there  in  the  old 
streets. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Mr.  W.  Ward, 

Hotel  d'Angleterre, 
Rouen  (France) 


[93] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

October  26th,  1867 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  just  received  the  drawings,  and  am  so 
much  pleased  with  them,  that  I  leave  it  now 
wholly  to  yourself  to  choose  what  you  will  do.  If 
you  think  Luxembourg  can  still  be  drawn  in  this 
weather,  you  may  go  there;  or  anywhere  else 
where  you  feel  inclined  to  go — not  too  far  from 
home.  I  will  pay  your  expenses,  and  furnish  your 
wife  with  what  she  may  further  need  while  you 
are  away,  if  you  will  go  on  making  drawings  like 
these  of  any  architecture  likely  to  perish.  But  if 
you  get  nervous,  or  tired,  come  home,  and  go  on 
with  the  Turners.  In  any  case,  not  staying  out 
beyond  the  end  of  November. 

I  enclose  £20  cheque,  which  I  have  no  doubt 
the  English  bankers  will  cash  if  you  show  them 
this  note;  if  they  won't,  keep  it  and  I'll  send  notes. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

John  Ruskin 
Mr.  W.  Ward, 
Hotel  de  France, 
Rouen. 


[94] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill,  London,  S.  E. 

October  31J/,  1867 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  have  only  time  today  to  say  that  the  house  in 
the  square,  with  its  beautifully  well-judged  omis- 
sion of  detail  in  shadow;  and  the  tall  street-view, 
with  the  balcony  on  left,  splendidly  swept  in,  in 
white;  delighted  me  most.     But  all  are  good. 

Try  for  a  little  more  definiteness  in  outline; 
they  are  a  little  too  vague.  Don't  be  afraid  of  a 
falsely — strong  line  or  two  to  express  form^  as  long 
as  they  are  lines  only.  The  eye  always  forgives 
d.  well  meant  outline,  but  not  a  false  colour,  or  a 
careless  form.  Keep  such  outlines  in  colour  har- 
monious with  their  place. 

You  may  write  me  whatever  you  like  to  talk 
about,  provided  you  write  large  and  clear.  You 
may  trust  to  the  truth  of  my  sympathy;  but  you 
must  remember  that  I  am  engaged  in  the  investi- 
gation of  enormous  religious  and  moral  questions, 
in  the  history  of  nations;  and  that  your  feelings,  or 
my  own,  or  anybody  else's,  at  any  particular  mo- 
ment, are  of  very  little  interest  to  me, — not  from 
want  of  sympathy,  but  from  the  small  proportion 
the  individuality  bears  to  the  whole  subject  of  my 
enquiry. 

[95] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

I  have  no  affections,  having  had  them,  three 
times  over,  torn  out  of  me  by  the  roots, — most 
fatally  the  last  time,  within  the  last  year.  I  hope 
to  be  kind  and  just  to  all  persons,  and  of  course  I 
like  and  dislike;  but  my  w^ord  ''affectionately" 
means  only — that  I  should  have  loved  people,  if 
I  were  not  dead. 

As  a  matter  of  practical  fact,  you  may  always 
trust  to  my  kindness  in  a  due  proportion,  as  you 
stand  among  other  people  who  require  it;  and  to 
my  understanding  sympathy  in  proportion  also. 
But  I  have  no  pleasure  myself,  now,  in  any  human 
relation.  Knowing  this,  you  will  be  able  to  un- 
derstand a  good  deal  in  my  ways  of  going  on, 
otherwise  inexplicable. 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

November  i^th,  1867 

Dear  Ward, 

The  drawings  are  all  safe,  and  very  beautiful 
they  are; — and  the  photographs,  of  great  value  to 
me.    The  little  view  of  the  street  and  clock  is  a 

[96] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

very  lovely  piece  of  tone,  and  everything  you  have 
done  is  well. 

At  Luxembourg,  however,  do  a  few  more  pen- 
cil outlines — they  will  contain  more  of  what  I 
chiefly  want,  and  be  more  quickly  done. 

If  the  enclosed  cheque  is  unavailable,  you  have 
time  to  write  me  for  notes;  but  I  always  fancy 
notes  in  more  danger  by  post.  I  send  a  cheque  to- 
day of  same  amount  to  your  wife. 

And  am,  ever 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  William  Ward, 

Hotel  de  Cologne, 
Luxembourg. 

I  am  very  glad  you  stopped  to  see  the  Louvre; 
it  would  be  of  use  to  you  in  every  way.  And  now 
you  know  what  painting  means,  and  can  appreciate 
those  confounded  Venetians. 

(To  Mrs,  William  Ward) 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

November  iph,  1867 

Dear  Mrs.  Ward, 

I  enclose  you  a  cheque  for  £10,  with  great 
pleasure,  at  the  same  time,  in  being  able  to  tell 

[97] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

you  that  your  husband  is  doing  beautiful  work; 
and,  I  hope,  will  in  future  be  happily  confident 
in  his  own  powers;  and  sufficiently  prosperous  in 
their  exercise  for  his  entire  comfort,  and  yours. 

Very  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Put  your  name  on  the  back  of  the  cheque. 

Hotel  de  France, 
Abbeville,  France, 
Sept  srd  (1868) 
My  dear  Ward, 

Would  you  please  send  me  a  line  here,  saying 
whether  you  are  doing  any  work  for  Mr.  Norton,* 
or  have  anything  in  hand  that  will  need  any  time: 
— and  if  you  are  not  at  any  special  work,  or  as  soon 
as  you  have  done  it,  I  should  like  you  to  come 
over  here  for  a  few  days  to  work  on  buildings 
with  me. 

Write  me  word  when  I  may  expect  you.  There 
is  no  hurry  as  I  shall  be  here  some  time  yet. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RuSKIN 
Without  further  hearing  from  me,  if  you  send 
me  word  when  you  are  coming,  you  may  come  as 
*  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton. 

[98] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

soon  as  you  like.     Bring  what  you  have  done  for 
me  with  you. 

Denmark  Hill,  S.  E. 

[April,  1869] 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  not  forgetting  you.  I  have  been  terribly 
overworked — but  will  assuredly  make  some 
arrangement  to  get  your  drawings  recommended 
for  sale  this  season. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

2bth  April,  1869 

My  dear  Ward, 

Here  are  twenty  Pounds:  and  please  call  at 
Denmark  Hill  for  a  parcel  addressed  to  you. 
Eight  drawings  signed  *  by  me  on  the  back — of 
those  you  have  done.  Call  at  Colnaghi's,t  ask  for 
Mr.  McKay, — say  you  come  from  me, — and  I 
hope  you  may  arrange  something  about  the  draw- 
ings satisfactory. 

Every  truly  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 

*  Ruskin,  at  this  time,  began  the  practice  of  signing  Ward's 
copies  of  Turner  as  a  proof  of  their  merit  and  value. 

t  The  well-known  picture  dealers. 

[99] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

4/A  June,  1869 
My  dear  Ward, 

My  address  is  Poste  Restante,  Verona,  Italie. 
I  am  more  surprised  and  annoyed  at  the  result 
of  my  letter  to  Mr.  McKay  than  you  can  be.    And 
after  that — that  anybody  should   say   the  public 
care  what  I  say  or  think  1 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Verona, 

July  6th,  1869 
My  dear  Ward, 

You  may  send  any  drawings  you  have  by  you  at 
present  to  America;  I  am  very  anxious  that  they 
should  be  seen  there,  and  become  the  means  of 
giving  a  more  true  impression  of  Turner  than  can 
be  received  from  engravings,  or  from  any  ordinary 
copies.  But  send  one  or  two  finished  vignettes  in 
transparent  colour  also  (the  Bolton  *  would  be 
very  good),  and  explain  the  nature  of  the  body- 
colour  studies  yourself  to  the  person  to  whom  you 
send  them. 

You  may  order  small  golden  frames  of  my  pat- 

*  Bolton  Abbey,  one  of  the  vignette  illustrations  to  Rogers's 
Poems. 

[100] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD      *,      .:    l: 

tern  from  Foord  for  them;  and  send  this  letter  to 
accompany  them,  if  you  like. 

Very  truly  yuurs, 

J.  RUSKIN 
(The  above,  more  formal,  letter  was  enclosed 
with  the  following: — ) 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  send  you  cheque,  and  a  letter  which  may  be  of 
some  use.  Send  them  in  nice  golden  frames,  but 
explain  that  your  prices  will  not  in  future  include 
frames.  I  have  no  doubt,  in  spite  of  the  dealers, 
you  will  soon  now  establish  connections  enough  to 
keep  you  employed. 

I  think,  at  the  prices  pictures  now  fetch,  you 
may  send  these  at  15  guineas;  and  offer  to  take 
orders  at  15  for  the  present  year — but  not  after- 
wards. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RuSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
LoxDOX,  S.  E. 
November  1st,  1869 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  wish  you  had  told  me  what  you  had  been 
doing.     I   am  very  much   pleased   with   all   the 

[lOl] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

vignette  drawings;  all  that  you  want  now  is  deci- 
sion of  form.  Draw  everything  you  can  from 
nature  in  outline  now,  with  a  pen  not  finer  than 
this,  and  in  one  line — to  give  steadiness  to  your 
hand. 

I  have  ordered  two  soi-disant  ''Turners"  *  to  be 
left  at  the  Gallery  to  your  care,  addressed  to  me. 
Please  tell  me  when  they  come,  if  I  don't  see  you 
before. 

I  shall  see  you  this  week,  I  hope.  Here  is  your 
cheque. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  Wm.  Ward, 

National  Gallery. 

Denmark  Hill,  S.  E. 
{yd  Dec,  1869) 

Friday 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  never  received  your  letter.  I  should  not  have 
left  it  unanswered. 

*  "People  were  continually  trying  to  get  Mr.  Ruskin's 
opinion  about  their  pictures  In  the  hope  that  a  treasure  might 
be  found — which  never  happened  so  far  as  I  know!" 

William  Ward. 

[102] 


^^m 


?l»Bi«stIi3%iII,S.E. 


0 


Plate  X 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

You  can  always  employ  yourself  at  Twicken- 
ham advantageously  in  Pen  outline.  Your  draw- 
ings would  now  be  exquisite  with  a  little  more 
fineness  of  touch  and  edge.  Draw  trees,  and 
leaves  (Plate  X)  real  size  in  any  quantity,  with 
one  line. 

And  have  you  mastered  my  perspective?*  I 
may  be  able  to  make  some  use  of  your  knowledge 
soon.  If  you  have  not,  set  to  work  on  that  at  once 
or  come  here  any  day  in  the  evening  for  a  lesson. 

Truly  yours, 
J,  RUSKIN 


Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 
December  iSth,  1869 
My  dear  Ward, 

Don't  come  out  this  evening,  come  Monday. 
Please  do  me  next  this  (Plate  XI)  of  the  Italy. 

Very  truly  yours, 

J.  R. 

The  birds  are  lovely. 

*  Ruskin's  Elements  of  Perspective,  published  1859. 

[103] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Paris, 
July  26th,  1870 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  sure  there  is  much  reason,  in  your  long 
hope  deferred,  for  heart-sickness,  considering  all 
the  good  work  you  have  done.  But  don't  lose 
heart  now,  when  I  have  just  been  able  to  bring 
your  work  into  true  service  at  Oxford. 

I  shall  be  at  home,  D.  V.,  on  Thursday.  If  you 
like  to  bring  me  the  Martigny  on  Saturday  even- 
ing, it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  me  to  shake  hands,  and 
— with  good  grounds — encourage  you. 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
August  gth,  1870 
My  dear  Ward, 

/  don't  want  any  of  these  leaves  painted.  You 
are  to  work  on  them  for  practice,  doing  one  or 
two  over  and  over  again — fifty  times,  if  needful. 

Of  course  all  painting — oil — water — fresco — 
and  everything,  is  done  at  one  coup,  when  it  is 
right.  But  certain  processes  of  colour  require  lay- 
ing of  two  or  three  different  colours  over  each 

[104] 


{i^  If  thilrrf 


Plate  XI 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

other;  then  the  under  one  must  dry  first,  etc.  etc. 
etc.  All  this  mechanism  you  have  to  learn,*  but 
the  French  know  hardly  anything  about  it. 

Of  course  Meissonier  paints  at  a  blow;  and  his 
work  is  like  a  plasterer's,  as  all  French  work  is. 
Titian  also  paints  at  a  blow — but  his  work  is  not 
like  a  plasterer's.  Titian  paints  with  a  sense  of 
mystery,  and  Meissonier  with  none;  and  Titian 
with  a  sense  of  true  hue,  and  Meissonier  with  no 
more  sense  of  colour  than  a  common  stainer  of 
photographs. 

But  learn  of  anybody  how  to  do  what  they  do, 

—it  will  always  be  useful. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  W.  Ward. 

Tuesday  25th  {Oct.,  1870) 
My  dear  Ward, 
Come  tomorrow — Wednesday  at  12. 

Most  truly  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 
Bring  all  with  you  that  you  have,  and  all  that 
you  have  of  my  things.     I  want  some  to  use  and 
others  I  can  change. 

*  The   mechanism   of    oil-painting   is  intended,    which   my 
father  was  then  studying.     W.  C.  W. 

[losl 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

November  29/A,  1870 

My  dear  Ward, 

If  you  come  out  here  on  Monday  next,  I  can 
glance  at  your  method,  and  say  if  it  will  do.  I'm 
obliged  to  spare  myself  in  eyes  and  thought — even 
to  the  least  minutes — just  now;  not  from  actual 
illness,  but  that  I  may  keep  out  of  danger  of  it. 
Come  at  two  o'clock. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

1st  February,  1871 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  send  you  cheque  for  £20.  Do  not  be 
troubled  about  Fors.*  It  will  be  heard  of.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  say  there  is  such  a  book;  and 
that  you  have  my  positive  order  not  to  send  any 
human  being  a  copy  without  previous  reception  of 
the  sum  of  sevenpence.     I  have  desired  Allen  to 

*  Fors  Clavigera,  a  series  of  monthly  letters  "to  the  Work- 
men and  Labourers  of  Great  Britain,"  published  for  Ruskin 
by  Mr.  George  Allen.  The  first  number  was  issued  in 
January,  1871. 

[106] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

send  you  a  parcel  of  fifty  of  the  new  ones,  on  that 

condition.     Of  the  sevenpence,  one  penny  is  for 

postage:  one  penny  is  for  yourself — and  fivepence 

for  me. 

Always  truly  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 

Write  to  the  people  whom  you've  sent  the  book 
to  and  say  I  insist  on  my  sevenpence  or  you'll  put 
me  out  in  all  my  accounts. 


Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
May  lyth,  1 87 1 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  glad  you  like  Fors.^  People  will  find  it  a 
very  intrusive  ''dream"  in  a  little  while,  if  I  live. 

Yours  always  faithfully, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  Carlyle  wrote  Ruskin  of  Fors:  "it  is  incomparable;  a 
quasi-sacred  consolation  to  me,  which  almost  brings  tears  to 
my  eyes!  Every  word  is  as  if  spoken,  not  out  of  my  poor 
heart  only,  but  out  of  the  eternal  skies;  words  winged  with 
Empyrean  wisdom,  piercing  as  lightning, — and  which  I  do  not 
really  remember  to  have  heard  the  like  of.  Continue,  while 
you  have  such  utterances  in  you,  to  give  them  voice," 

[107] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Matlock, 
July  2oth,  1 871 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  could  not  at  once  answer  about  the  drawings; 
they  required  thought,  and  I  have  not  yet  much 
strength  for  thinking. 

There  is  great  advance  in  your  own,  but  you  will 
have  to  paint  backgrounds  of  real  things,  how- 
ever ugly.  That  Kingfisher  would  look  very  well 
on  a  little  straw. — The  others,  of  which  the  shell 
is  the  best,  would  need  some  more  elaborateness; 
the  peacock's  feather  on  a  bit  of  tapestry,  or  the 
like. 

Of  the  Turners.  The  red  sunset  is  admirable;  I 
can  scarcely  feel  any  difference  from  the  original, 
and  it  is  most  precious  to  me. 

The  white  town  and  storm  is  excellent,  but  a 
less  precious  drawing  in  the  original.  The  Lux- 
embourg is  better  than  the  old  one.  I  think  the 
near  tone  about  right;  the  distance  I  must  examine 
with  you. 

The  distance  of  the  (Plate  XII)  seems  to  me  a 
total  failure  in  the  hillside;  the  town  is  good,  and 
this  red  passage  with  spotty  boats. 

Your  son  shall  have  his  Herodotus  at  last. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

[108] 


Plate  XII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

September  c)th,  1871 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  pleased  with  these  skies — but  re- 
gret that  you  have  done  so  many,  and  not  carried 
a  few  farther.  There  must  have  been  many  in 
reality  with  more  complex  forms.  But  you  make 
rapid  progress  now. 

I  enclose  cheque.  It  doesn't  matter,  I  suppose, 
being  in  Crawley's  name.  I  am  still  weak,  but 
gaining  steadily. 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Some  of  these  skies  will  do  for  Oxford.  The 
butterflies,  shells,  etc.,  shall  be  left  at  the  National 
Gallery,  with  the  skies  I  don't  want. 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

November,  1871 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  greatly  and  sincerely  grieved  to  hear 
of  your  illness.  Would  you  kindly  tell  me — or  let 
Mrs.  Ward  do  so — exactly  its  symptoms. 

[109] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

I  was  much  pleased  with  your  drawings,  but  am 
almost  broken  down  with  work.  I  want  to  see 
you,  and  to  have  some  help  from  you  in  bird 
drawing. 

I  hear  you  gave  great  help  and  delight  to  Mies 
Jermyn. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R(USKIN) 


(To  Mrs.  Wm.  Ward) 
Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 

December  6th,  1871 

My  dear  Mrs.  Ward, 

I  am  sincerely  obliged  to  you  for  all  your  letters 
— now  you  need  not  trouble  to  write  more.  I  shall 
trust  that  your  husband  goes  on  well,  and  I  hope 
that  at  last  my  books  and  work  are  in  a  state  which 
will  enable  me  to  do  some  justice  to  his  powers, 
and  put  him  and  you  in  some  increase  of  security 
for  future  comfort. 

Most  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

[no] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Denmark  Hill, 

London,  S.  E. 
December  2gth,  1871 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  thankful  that  you  are  better,  and  if 
any  of  these  new  sunrises  are  done  since  your  ill- 
ness, you  are  in  no  wise  weaker  in  style  of  work. 
But  I  trust  you  will  not  expose  yourself  to  risk 
any  more.  I  shall  soon  have  some  more  hand  col- 
ouring for  you  to  do,  which  will  be  a  great  rest 
to  you  as  compared  with  Turner,  or  sunset  work. 

I  most  heartily  wish  you  and  your  family  a  good 
New  Year. 

Affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
January  2()th,  1872 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  will  be  at  the  National  Gallery  as  nearly  after 
two  as  may  be,  on  Thursday. 
Your  butterfly  looks  well  at  the  Dudley.* 
If  you  had  got  a  pretty  foreground  to  some  of 
*  The  Dudley  Gallery  Exhibition. 

[Ill] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

those  skies,  they  would  have  been  sold  there.    But 
you  are  getting  on,  fast. 

Always  yours  faithfully, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Denmark  Hill,  S.  E. 

{^th  Feb.,  1872) 

With  best  thanks,  and  congratulations.     Take 

care  of  your  health.     This  Turner  copy  is  lovely 

and  your  own  very  beautiful. 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 
W.  Ward,  Esq. 


(Corpus  Christi  College 

Oxford, 

February   i^th,   1872) 

My  dear  Ward, 

In  the  large  picture  by  Marco  Marziale,*  as 
you  turn  into  the  Italian  room,  is  a  greyish  white 
damask  sleeve  with  a  dark  pattern  on  it,  like  this 
(Plate  XIII).  I  want  the  white  unshadowed  part 
copied  most  accurately,  with  pattern,  for  me  to 
have  a  paper  made  for  my  new  house. f    Arrange 

*  The  Circumcision,  in  the  National  Gallery, 
t  Brantwood,  Coniston. 

[112] 


-t  ^w^  ij:j[^'  cu^^^^^u^ 


<5/r. 


t 


H^  I  If 


Plate  XIII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

with  Mr.  Severn  (Heme  Hill)  to  meet  and  con- 
sult on  Friday,  at  the  Gallery. 

Ever  yours, 
J.  R(USKIN) 

Denmark  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
April  nth,  1872 
Keep  up  your  spirit — all  will  go  well,  I  do  not 
doubt! 

I  have  put  four  of  your  vignettes*  into  Oxford 
school,  permanently. 

Write  tomorrow  to  Geneva;  or  on  Saturday  or 
Monday  to  Turin,  Italy. 

Yours  always, 
J.  R(USKIN) 

Go  on  making  drawings  of  your  own. 

Siena, 
May  27th,  1872 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  enclose  you  a  cheque  which  I  have  no  doubt 
will  serve  the  turn  at  present 

The  dealers  will  take  anything  they  think  likely 
*  Copies  of  the  Turner  vignettes. 

[113] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

to  catch  the  eye  in  a  window.  You  must  keep  up 
your  heart.  It  is  only  this  year  that  you  have  shewn 
real  power.  You  must  not  hope  to  sell  at  once, 
unless  you  had  the  particular  cleverness  needed 
for  the  public.  But  go  on  fearlessly,  and  quietly 
perfecting  your  power  of  decision,  lately  devel- 
oped. 

Write,  if  you  like,  to  me  at  Verona. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

{Nov.  1872) 
My  dear  Ward, 

Impossible  today! — but  the  drawings  very  beau- 
tiful.   You  must  come  to  Oxford  and  have  a  study 
with  me.    Come  whenever  convenient,  for  a  week. 
I  take  14  of  the  drawings  to  Oxford  with  me  to- 
day and  return  the  rest. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

[Feb.   1873] 
Keep  up  your  heart.     I  have  sent  some  of  the 
vignettes  and  body  colours  to  America,  fixing  price 
£20  the  body  colours  and  £25  the  vignettes.     I 
hope  to  get  some  custom  there  for  you. 

[114] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

It  is  utter  nonsense  about  coming  to  town  or 
showing  things  off. 

It  is  knack  and  dodge  of  hand  that  you  want, 
and  you  have  not — and  that's  my  fault  partly — 
ever  learned  your  business  thoroughly. 

I  did  not  know  this  till  I  put  you  on  the  bridge 
at  Oxford. 

Brantwood, 
coniston 

{March   nth,   1873) 
Yes — that  lock  and  mill  are  very  fine — but  blunt 

in  touch. 

Thanks  for  Chinese. 

I  can't  answer  Vs  of  my  letters,  now.    I  was  glad 

to  get  one  that  wasn't  merely  on  business. 

Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford 
{May  16th,  1873) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  quite  out  of  all  knowledge  of  girl  educa- 
tion now.*  Mrs.  Baynes,  Mount  View  Hamp- 
stead,  is  an  entirely  worthy  and  prudent  school- 

*  I  believe  my  father  had  consulted  him  as  to  a  school  for 
his  daughter.    W.  C.  W. 

[115] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

mistress  and  makes  her  girls  happy.  I  know  no 
other  place — could  only  guess — and  I  never  like 
guessing. 

Enclosed  cheque. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  RUSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 

{July  2jth,   1873) 

My  dear  Ward, 

Folio  received  safe.  Much  good  quality  in  the 
work,  but  scarcely  any  progress.  You  v^ill  not 
study  in  the  only  direction  in  w^hich  progress  is 
possible.  You  must  draw  in  Daylight  and  with 
perfectly  firm  lines. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 

August  3rJ,   1873 

My  dear  Ward, 

These  outlines  are  exactly  what  you  should  do. 
Introduce  no  shading  at  present.  Draw  easy 
things  rightly.  Never  tire  yourself, — and  never 
do  wrong  for  an  instant,  knowingly. 

[116] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  had  not  seen  the  brass  candlestick  when  I 
wrote.  It  is  so  good  that  I  am  going  to  send  it  to 
you  to  have  a  white  background  put  to  it,  and  then 
I  will  put  it  in  my  Oxford  series. 

Yours  truly, 
J.   R(USKIN) 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 

{Aug.  isth,  1873) 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  pleased  with  these  drawings.  The 
houses  cannot  be  better  (I  mean,  as  practice). 
The  tree  is  most  careful  and  beautiful.  Try  to  ex- 
press the  outlines  of  masses  with  less  labour.  I 
send  cheque  and  the  drawings  shall  come,  if  not 
today,  by  Monday  train. 

Ever  yours  affectionately, 

J.  R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 
August  iSth,  1873 
My  dear  Ward, 

Would  you  like  to  take  a  trip  to  France,  alone, 
and  do  some  more  servile  copying  work,  there, 

[117] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

from  nature?  If  so,  get  ready,  and  I'll  send  you 
funds  and  directions.  Mont  St.  Michel  the  first 
place. 

Truly  yours, 
J.  R(USKIN) 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 
{Aug,  2ist,   1873) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  send  cheque  for  50.  Start  as  soon  as  you  can. 
Get  to  Mont  St.  Michel,  and  send  me  word  if  you 
can  draw  in  the  cloister  of  it.  If  so  make  me  a 
coloured  sketch  of  any  part  that  comes  pretty,  and 
pencil  outlines  of  any  piece  of  castle,  town  or 
(monument)  you  like  and  send  me  your  address, 
there. 

Yours  affectionately^ 

J.  RUSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 

September  loth,  1873 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  delighted  with  your  letter,  and  account  of 
St.  Michel.     I've  half  a  mind  to  come  off  to  you. 

[118] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  couldn't  draw  when  I  was  there,  for  convicts.* 
What  sort  of  Inn  are  you  in? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 
J.  R(uskin) 
If  I  brought  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Severn,  how  should 
we  lodge? 


Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford 

November  ibth,  1873 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  glad  you  are  safe  at  home  again. 

I  wrote  again  about  a  fortnight  since  to  St. 
Michel,  asking  how  you  were  to  get  away;  but 
I  suppose  you  did  not  get  my  letter.  Heaven  stop 
the  steam  demon  from  helping  either  you  or  me 
there!  But,  God  willing,  I'll  see  it  this  coming 
summer. 

I  look  anxiously  for  the  drawings.  That  moon- 
light walk  must  be  wonderful. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.   R(USKIN) 
Mr.  Wm.  Ward. 

*  At  that  time  a  political  prison. 

[119] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford 

November  ^^th,   1873 
My  dear  Ward, 

Your  time  has  been  spent  instructively  to  your- 
self, and  usefully  to  me ; — though  the  cloister  sub- 
jects are  much  less  interesting  than  I  expected,  and 
though  you  have  rather  too  strictly  carried  out  my 
wishes  about  outline  study.  A  few  colour  senti- 
mental bits  at  St.  Michael's  would  have  been  very 
desirable.  But  the  outline  work  is  all  excellent, 
and  I  doubt  not  you  will  find  the  good  of  it. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 


Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford 
{Dec.  2,  1873) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  glad  to  hear  the  detail  of  your  work  and 
will,  when  I  come  to  town,  give  you  the  cloister 
to  work  on  a  little.  You  never  had  more  whole- 
some exercise  and  it  is  in  many  ways  good  and  valu- 
able but  I  thought  the  place  was  prettier. 

[120] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Send  me  the  bits  of  effect  when  done. 

Ever  truly  yours, 


J.  R. 


Cheque  enclosed, 


Arthur  Severn's, 
Herne  Hill,  S.  E. 
Day  before  Christmas  Day 
[December  2^th,)   1873 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  intensely  delighted  with  your  sketches, 
finished  sketches  I  ought  to  say,  just  received  from 
Oxford. 

They  are  a  complete  reward  to  me  for  all  my 
patience  and  work  with  you,  as  I  hope  they  will 
bring  reward  to  you  for  all  your  patience  and  faith 
in  me. 

Send  me  a  complete  schedule  to  the  end  of  the 
year  of  your  ''liabilities,"  as  the  elegant  modern 
English  commercial  school  call  them,  at  that 
period. 

Attend  to  your  health,  be  as  cheerful  as  you 
can,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  (after  12th 
day  at  latest)   I  will  set  you  to  correct  work.     I 

[121] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

must  see  you  first,  and  you  shall  choose  of  several 
things  to  be  done  what  you  like  best.  In  the  mean- 
time make  pencil  outlines  of  any  portion  of  cloud 
that  stays  long  enough,  especially  upper  ones  of 
delicate  ramification.  This  is  the  only  work  I 
will  prescribe  at  Christmas  time. 

I  wish  you  all  good,  with  your  family,  and  am, 

Your  faithful  Master, 

John  Ruskin 
Mr.  Wm.  Ward. 


Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford 
January  20th,  1874 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  entirely  delighted  with  these  things — they 
are  wonderful.  You  have  quite  a  singular  gift 
for  skies ;  I  never  saw  anything  more  subtle  or  lu- 
minous.    Go  on  drawing  cloud  form  with  pencil, 

portions,  not whole  skies.    Finesse  of  outline 

of  bits  is  what  I  want  you  to  learn.  This  (Plate 
XIV)  wants  nothing  of  being  a  quiet  magnificent 
drawing,  except  entirely  careful  outline  of  the 
clouds, — and  dark  boat. 

[122] 


c/\Xi^^^     ,  O-*/^ 


f 


^.COc^     c^M-*-^     'T-^.^U'-^      ^     ^^     ?y 
t^yru^^     -r     •""■^^    ."^^.c-^    (^7«C??;         — 


Pl.ATF.    Xl\' 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I'll  clear  off  all  your  debts,*  as  per  schedule, 
directly. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 

I'm  at  Heme  Hill  again  for  a  day  or  two.  I 
shall  be  at  the  National  Gallery  on  Thursday  and 
Friday,  if  you  like  to  come. 

Paris, 
April  1st,  1874 

My  dear  Ward, 

There  was  nothing  to  be  said  about  the  outlines, 
or  I  should  have  said  it.  Every  man  must  find  his 
own  way  of  expressing  himself.  I  supposed  you 
were  not  satisfied  with  them,  and  would  do  better 
as  you  got  practice.  One  can't  be  guided  at  every 
instant  with  any  good  result. 

I  enclose  cheque  for  37  pounds,  and  I  hear  of 
60  pounds'  worth  sold  for  you  in  America.  This 
should  carry  you  on  some  while.  Write  always 
care  of  Arthur  Severn.  When  the  weather  gets 
a  little  warmer  I  w^ant  you  to  make  some  outlines 

*  After  making  fun — serious  fun — of  the  word,  or  use  of 
the  word  "liabilities"  in  the  preceding  letter,  Ruskin  himself 
naturally  uses  "debts."  It  bears  witness  to  his  hatred  of  all 
super-elegant  slang  whether  of  business  or  aesthetic  matters; 
his  fear  that  such  was,  as  it  usually  is,  a  makeshift  for  cover- 
ing up  slovenly  and  indefinite  thinking. 

[123] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

for  me  at  Montfort,  near  the  Seine,  between  Paris 
and    Rouen — but   have   not   time   to   write   more 

^'  Yours  always  affectionately, 

J.    RUSKIN 

Assisi, 
nth  April,  (1874) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  vexed  at  my  carelessness,  but  hope 
the  double  enclosure  now  sent  will  put  you  afloat 
for  some  time.  About  twenty  pounds  more  are 
coming — completing  the  price  of  four  of  your 
drawings  at  £21  each,  but  Mr.  Norton  thinks  the 
fifth  will  sell  also. 

Be  very  economical  now  that  the  skies  begin  to 
open.  Write  to  Mr.  Severn  that  you  have  received 
these  cheques. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J,    RuSKIN 

Herne  Hill, 
Tuesday   [Dec.  ibth,  1874) 

My  dear  Ward, 

Your  parcel  unfortunately  did  not  arrive  until 
I  had  left  Cowley  but  I  will  have  it  sent  to  Oxford 
and  write  to  you  of  it  on  Sunday. 

You  shall  have  loan  of  a  Goodwin  directly.    But 

[124] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

what  you  really  want  is  firm  pen  form  drawing 
with  attentive  and  worked  chiaroscuro.  Goodwin 
can  compose,  and  you  cannot;  but  he  may  be  eas- 
ily beaten  by  you  in  pure  drawing  which  has  al- 
ways its  value. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford. 
20th  April,   (1875) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  only  did  not  answer  through  pressure  and  fa- 
tigue. 

Goodwin's  method  is  not  so  good  as  your  own. 
But  he  has  invention  and  you  haven't.  You  ought 
to  know  both  these  facts  better  than  I.  But  facts 
they  are. 

I'll  try  to  see  you  this  week  at  National  Gallery. 
Be  there  on  Thursday  afternoon  at  three.  I  may  or 
mayn't  come. 

Affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

(Oxford,  M^y  ibth,  1875) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  delighted  with  your  vignette,  but 
must  compare  it  with  original  carefully.    Be  in  the 

[125] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Gallery  on  Wednesday  afternoon,  and  Thursday. 
I  hope  to  come  on  the  first  and  shall  not  fail,  if 
well,  on  the  second  at  latest. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July  Z^rd,   1875 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  delighted  with  these  two  last  copies.  The 
moonlight  seems  to  me  quite  perfect;  the  other,  in 
the  w^ater  and  rocks,  also  admirable  and  most  sat- 
isfactory. But  I  suspect  error  in  the  lines  of  the 
temple,  and  incompletion  in  the  distant  houses — ■ 
this  I  will  see  to,  however,  myself. 

I  rejoice  most  of  all  in  hearing  that  the  work 
seems  to  come  easier  to  you.  I  cannot  doubt,  now, 
if  I  am  spared,  being  able  to  place  for  you  copies 
I  can  recommend  so  unqualifiedly. 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

J,    RUSKIN 

(Oxford,  July  z^th,  1875) 
My  dear  Ward, 
Send  the  vignettes  to  Brantwood. 

[126] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  hope  you  are  doing  your  best?  I  don't  like 
their  being  done  quite  so  fast. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 
I  shall  not  be  at  Brantwood  for  ten  days,  as  I 
post.    Look  over  your  work  carefully. 

Brantwood, 
CoNisTON,  Lancashire. 

August  Sth,  1875 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  more  and  more  admire  these  vignettes  of  yours 
as  I  examine  them.  They  are  very  wonderful.  I 
am  certain  of  being  able  soon  now  to  get  orders 
for  you — as  my  own  work  is  coming  into  form  for 
beginning  systematic  issue  of  it. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
17th  Sept.,  1875 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  now  greatly  pleased  with  your  work  but 
I  can  pass  none  till  I  have  compared  it  at  the  Gal- 
lery; can  you  tell  me  w^hen  and  for  how  long  it 

[127] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

closes?  I  shall  be  coming  south  in  about  ten  days, 
and  will  come  to  the  Gallery  as  my  chief  business 
before  going  to  Oxford.  I  leave  you  to  make  your 
own  terms  with  any  outside  employers,  being  al- 
ways ready  myself  to  take  the  vignettes  at  ten 
guineas.  This  one  I  consider  worth  more  but  I 
can't  afiford  more;  so  I  hope  you  will  sell  it  for 
a  fair  price  to  somebody  else. 

Ever  truly  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 

Bolton  Abbey, 

September  2^thj  1875 

My  dear  Ward, 

I'm  very  sorry  my  careless  addressing  kept  my 
letter  from  you.  I  forget  whether  it  said  that  you 
might  make  any  arrangement  you  liked  about  the 
Turner  vignettes  for  the  present;  but  on  the  whole 
I  think  you  ought  to  insist,  from  the  public,  on 
twenty  guineas  as  average  price,  rising  to  twenty- 
five — never  more;  and  falling  to  fifteen — never 
less;  for  all  small  drawings,  square  or  vignette, 
according  to  the  work  in  them.  And  that  if  you 
can't  get  those  prices,  you  should  fall  back  on  me 
and  my  ready  ten  guineas,  and  not  take  that  lower 
price  from  anybody  else.    Those  that  /  buy,  I  shall 

[128] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

work  on  myself,  and  perhaps  then  let  you  make 
some  other  arrangement  about  them, — but  can't  be 
sure  till  I  see  how  your  own  business  prospers. 

My  kind  regards  to  your  good  hostess — or  are 
you  with  Miss  Dundas  just  now? 

Write  to  Heme  Hill.  I  shall  call  on  Wornum 
(if  he  is  in  town)  on  Monday  afternoon — but  prob- 
ably he  is  holiday  making  like  the  rest  of  us. 

Truly  yours  always, 

J.    RUSKIN 

{Oct.  31,  1875) 

My  dear  Ward, 

It  will  be  impossible  for  you  to  earn  your  bread 
by  Turner  copying,  as  long  as  the  world  is  under 
this  Egyptian  plague,  (now  more  terrible  every 
year  for  five  years:) — you  must  just  work  in  the 
hour  or  two  hours  of  the  perhaps  one,  perhaps  two 
days  in  the  week  that  let  the  sun  shine  as  long. 
I  think  a  steady  employment  should  now  open  itself 
for  you  in  hand  colouring  of  examples  of  colour  for 
my  published  copying  system.  This  last  has  long 
been  in  my  mind  and  I  will  now  at  once  set  about 
it.  IVJeantime  take  a  piece  of  smooth  (a  Turner 
vignette)  paper  the  size  of  a  page  of  Fors.  Divide 
it  into  8  columns  of  twenty  squares  each,  separated 

[129] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

by  seven  white  bars.  In  each  column  gradate 
the  colour  named  above  it,  from  its  full  pitch  in 
the  top  square  to  white  at  the  bottom,  as  evenly 
as  you  can  all  the  way.  The  black  to  go  through 
gray  into  white  like  the  rest. 

Do  this  not  with  extreme  care,  but  roughly,  to 
let  me  see  the  effect  and  give  further  orders,  and 
send  it  to  me  to  Oxford. 

Yours  affectionately, 
J.  R. 

Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford. 
2nd  Nov.,  1875 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  enclose  cheque.  Keep  the  Forum*  till  next 
Monday  when  I  hope  to  be  in  National  Gallery 
by  eleven,  morning,  at  latest. 

Tell  the  Photographic  company  to  send  their 
account  to  me  here.  You  can  show  or  send  them 
this  note.  You  are  to  sell  the  photographs,t  post 
free,  mounted  simply,  for  three  shillings  each  after 
/  have  seen  them  and  sealed  them  as  good :  Mount 
for  post  size  as  you  say,  and  get  boards  ready  for 

*  Turner's  drawing. 

t  Ward  was  to  act  as  Ruskin's  agent  for  selling  approved 
photographs  of  pictures  and  buildings  mentioned  in  his  books. 

[130] 


,,t^       '^-     "-tTT^         ^$!L^       «.«^ 


^ce;^ 


Plate  XV 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

dispatch  and  bring  the  sixty  with  you  to  the  Gal- 
lery on  Monday. 

The  gradations  are  excellent — but  they  must  be 
as  good  as  they  possibly  can  be — for  examples  of 
perfection,  not  of  quickness  or  decision.  Equal 
therefore  all  the  way  thus    (Plate  XV), — not — . 

And  do  them  again  without  the  black,  therefore 
a  little  wider.  —  Carmine,  vermil(ion),  cad- 
(mium),  gamboge,  green,  blue,  violet. 

Mix  a  prettier  violet  of  cobalt  and  carmine 
which  will  be  more  grammatical. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 

Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford. 
{Nov,   27,   1875) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  won't  consider  this  an  advance,  but  a  proper 
increase  of  price  for  the  more  laborious  drawings. 
You  can't  work  in  these  days  at  the  National  Gal- 
lery but  can't  you  work  at  home  in  laying  founda- 
tions for  other  copies?  rough  work.  Get  half  a 
dozen  of  the  Turner  vignettes  outlined  and  laid 
in,  taking  exquisite  care  with  one  outline,  and  trac- 
ing the  rest  from  it.     I  want  to  make  these  draw- 

[131] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

ings  known  like  engravings.    You  may  get  on  much 
faster  so. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 

The  gradations  won't  do.    I  must  try  them  my- 
self, and  see  where  the  difficulty  lies. 


(London,  Dec,  6th,  1875) 

My  dear  Ward, 

You  are  not  to  take  a  farthing  less  than  15 
guineas.  You  can't  do  the  work  properly  for  less; 
and  you  must  be  content  with  my  ten,  till  people 
come  to  my  terms.  It  is  not  possible  that  my  words 
should  be  of  utterly  no  value,  when  once  the  Oxford 
school  is  fairly  understood.  If  you  are  going  to 
take  anything  less  than  15  guineas  I  am  your  buyer. 
As  soon  as  people  will  give  that,  I'll  let  you  have 
some  of  your  vignettes  back,  and  you  shall  have 
the  extra  5  on  them.  Meantime,  send  me  the  last, 
Isola  Bella,  down  to  Broadlands. 

Get  me  the  photographs  marked  with  X  in  en- 
closed list,  and  send  them  to  Broadlands  with  your 
vignette. 

You   must   be   very   careful   in   packing   those 

[132] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

mounted  photographs.     Crawley  has  done  them 
too  hastily  I  see.    They  should  not  have  warped. 

Ever  truly  yours, 
J.  R. 

{Jan.    loth,    1876) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  glad  of  your  more  cheerful  letter  and 
really  hope  better  times  are  coming  for  you. 

The  one  thing  that  beats  me  is  the  weather.  It 
drives  me  into  mere  despair  and  spoils  my  writing 
and  stops  my  drawing.  But  I'll  be  at  National 
Gallery  on  Wednesday  if  you'll  bring  the  photo- 
graphs to  sign. 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

Corpus  Christi  College, 

Oxford. 
February  2^th,  1876 
My  dear  Ward, 

You  may  order  a  hundred*  on  condition  of  strict 
examination,  and  return  of  all  copies  inferior  to 
my  pattern. 

*  Photographs. 

[133] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

If  this  accursed  weather  stops  photography,  just 
when  I  want  to  use  it,  the  Devil  really  deserves 
some  credit — five  per  cent,  at  least. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 

Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford. 

March   loth,   1876 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  glad  of  your  note  respecting  the 
mounting,  and  very  willingly  leave  the  matter  in 
your  hands.  But  have  you  got  any  of  the  new 
photos  yet?  I  will  look  for  those  you  sent  here, 
and  send,  if  findable.  I  shall  be  in  town,  I  hope, 
in  about  ten  days. 

What  you  say  of  Fors  much  interests  and  pleases 
me — also  of  snails. 

Ever  affectionately   yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July   22rd,   1876 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  must  be  in  town  now  in  about  a  fortnight,  and 
will  look  over  everything  you  can  muster.    Just 

[134] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

let  me  know  what  arrangements,  for  closing,  etc., 
are  to  be  made  at  the  National  Gallery,  that  I 
may  not  come  at  a  wrong  time. 

Send  a  Velasquez  photo  to  Miss  Louise  Blandy, 
57  Gloucester  Place,  Hyde  Park. 

I  have  tantalized  you  and  myself  about  this 
Ariadne  long  enough.*  I've  set  at  the  proofs  now, 
for  the  last  touch  up,  I  trust,  at  last. 

What  arrangements  have  you  finally  made  about 
the  price  of  vignettes  and  squares — in  case  I  say 
anything  about  price? 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Venice, 

September    igth,    1876 

My  dear  Ward, 

The  entry  at  Stationers'  Hall  is  an  excellent 
idea,t  but  I  won't  part  with  the  copyright  of  any 
books  or  drawings.     Enter  it  as  mine,  and  act  as 

*  In  Ariadne  Florentfna  mention  was  made  of  Ward's  copies 
of  Turner. 

t  This  refers  to  Ruskin's  drawing  of  the  Kingfisher,  which 
had  been  photographed  to  be  used  as  one  in  the  series  of  illus- 
trations. 

[135] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

my  agent  in  these  things,  as  Mr.  Allen  is  for  my 
books. 

E/Ver  truly  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
How  is  that  son  of  yours  going  on? 


Venice, 

February   17th,   1877 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  very  glad  of  your  letter,  and  will  assuredly 
make  use  of  you  as  you  suggest.  I  always  intended 
to  do  so,  and  it  would  have  been  done  by  this  time 
if  this  new  Venice  work  had  not  hindered. 

Burgess*  has  a  photographf  doing  of  a  pencil 
Turner,  Bonneville,  which  I  shall  be  thankful  to 
hear  is  in  your  hands. 

You've  got  from  me  lots  of  signed  photos,  haven't 
you?:j:     The  rest  will  come  soon. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  Arthur  Burgess,  the  wood  engraver. 

t  It  was  never  made. 

X  The  photographs  signed  by  Ruskin  were  four — Madonna 
and  Child,  by  Filippo  Lippi;  has  relief  of  Leucothea;  Ma- 
donna and  Child,  by  Titian ;  Infanta  Margaret,  by  Velasquez. 
They  are  referred  to  in  Fors  Clavigera. 

[136] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Venice, 
26/A  Feb.,  1877 

My  dear  Ward, 

It  is  really  very  bad  of  me  not  to  have  attended 
to  your  good  clients  before,  but  I  am  very  cautious 
just  now^  about  over  work  and  am  at  my  wits — 
proper-end  every  day  with  what  I'm  doing  here. 

R.  T.  H.  Bruce,* 

Do  whichever  you  feel  yourself  you  can  at  pres- 
ent do  with  best  spirit. 

1.  Tell's  Chapel,  Italy. 

2.  St.   Maurice,   Italy. 

3.  Vignette   to   Jacqueline    (Swiss   cottages)      Poemsf 

Thos.  Russell,t 

The  avenue  (I  forget  its  name!  Alas!!)  beside 
Seine  of  ''Rivers  of  France. ":j:  I've  long  wanted 
a  duplicate  of  this  to  be  made.     (Plate  XVI). 

Two  more  parcels  of  photographs  sent  Wednes- 
day. 

J.R. 


^  A  gentleman  who  had  given  an  order  for  a  Turner  copy. 
t  Roger's  Poems. 

:|:  The  drawing  intended  is  Turner's  "View  on  the  Seine 
between  Mantes  and  Vernon,"  in  the  Rivers  of  France  Series. 


[137] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Venice, 

May  1 2th,  1877 
My  dear  Ward, 

By  some  mischance  I  mislaid  your  letter  till 
yesterday — came  on  it  by  lucky  chance  only.  But 
I  am  ordering  sets  to  be  made  for  you  of  all  photo- 
graphs mentioned  at  any  length  in  Fors,  and  of  the 
two  capitals.  A  hundred  impressions  of  each  will 
be  ready  this  next  week,  and  dispatched  before  I 
leave  Venice — on  the  23rd. 

I  will  send  you  word  of  price  and  all.  The 
larger  one  enclosed  is  the  Sheffield  No.  5;  the 
smaller  (January  frying  fish,  March  with  rough 
hair)  is  the  size  of  No's  6  and  7.  No.  5  costs  a 
shilling,  here;  and  the  other  fivepence — so  you 
can  guess.  I  send  none  dearer  here  than  a  shill- 
ing, yet. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

I  will  put  you  in  communication  with  a  good 
agent  here. 

Brantwood, 

CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

{Aug.  2d,  1877) 
My  dear  Ward, 

Nothing  will   ^'companion"   that  sunny  river- 

[138] 


Plate  XVII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

side,*  quite,  but  the  one  with  bridge  under  trees  on 
the  right  is  very  glorious  in  its  way.  Look  at  this 
and  the  Rouen  wuth  rainbow  and  rosy  boats  and 
avenue — and  see  if  you  think  you  can  do  either. 
The  one  sketched  above  (Plate  XVII)  is  fearfully 
freehand. — You  might  try  it  however,  and  if  Mr. 
Russell  does  not  like  it  do  the  other. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
Oct.  1st  (1878) 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  hope  the  enclosed  will  obtain  the  permission 
you  want,  and  w^ill  you  please  first  finish,  or  as 
soon  as  possible,  the  Via  Mala  or  St.  Gothard  sub- 
ject and  send  it  to  me  down  here  to  look  at.  I 
can't  pass  it,  of  course,  till  I  see  the  original  but 
want  to  have  it  by  me. 

Yours  always, 

JR. 

*  The  "View  on  the  Seine"  referred  to  In  the  letter  of 
Feb.  26th. 

[139] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
(4//z  Oct.,  1878) 
Dear  Ward, 

The  Tell's  Chapel  you  shall  have,  with  pleasure, 
and  possibly  the  Fluelen,  but  I  can't  at  present  an- 
swer about  that,  till  I  see  your  Heysham  in  which 
I  am  deeply  interested.  Your  St.  Gothard  shall 
come  tomorrow.  Note  my  flourishes  o'f  white 
on  the  glass,  as  indicating  what  I  fancy  Turner 
did  to  some  extent.  I  hope  they  haven't  rubbed  ofi 
his  chalk  in  cleaning  or  shifting  frames!!? 

Always  yours, 
J.  R. 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

October  20th,   1878 

Dear  Ward, 

The  drawing*  is  safe  here,  and  I  am  delighted 
with  it, — but  much  puzzled  at  not  finding  more 
white  chalk  lines  rounding  the  clouds — I  thought 
they  were  daubed  on  at  the  edges. 

*  Ward's  copy  of  Turner's  St.  Gathard  Pass. 

[140] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Write  me  word  about  this  before  I  sign  the 
drawing,  as  I  should  like  to  put  a  ^^very  much  ap- 
proved"— but  am  afraid  of  wishing  afterwards  to 
"chalk  it  out." 

luveY  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

March  ()th,   1879 

My  dear  Ward, 

Thanks  for  nice  note  from  Miss  K.  I  hope 
your  son  is  going  on  well. 

You  can  have  the  Bellinzona  when  you  like. 
But  I  think  I  see  myself  letting  the  Rouen^  travel 
any  more ! !    Or  Fluelenl^ 

I  think  I  can  keep  you  quite  well  employed  at 
National  Gallery.  I  shall  be  up  in  town,  D.  V., 
in  three  weeks  and  will  choose  some  I  want  for 
myself. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RuSKiN 

*  Turner  drawings  which  belonged  to  Ruskln. 

[141] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

April  22rd,  1879 

Dear  Ward, 

I  don't  know  when  I've  had  so  much  pleasure  as 
in  those  paper  bits  about  my  dear  Bishop;*  thank 
Mrs.  Ward  ever  so  much  for  them. 

I  shall  be  delighted  if  that  Spanish  gentleman 
will  take  the  trouble  to  translate  the  Mornings.f 
I  wish  they  were  mornings  at  Madrid,  though — 
or  Granada — how  does  he  think  Spaniards  will 
care? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
Mr.  Wm.  Ward, 
2,  Church  Terrace, 
Richmond, 
Surrey. 


Easter  Sunday 
{Apr.,  1879) 
My  dear  Ward, 
I  send  you  the  signed  Leucotheas  today.    They 

*  Some  newspaper  cuttings  referring  to  Bishop  Colenso. 
t  Mornings  in  Florence. 

[142] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

are  very  fine  proofs.  Among  them  you  will  find 
two  bits  of  oak  spray  I've  just  done  which  would 
make  nice  little  drawing  lessons  if  photographed, 
and  I  will  look  out  some  sketches  of  better  things 
for  you.  I  could  not  try  in  town  nor  do  anything 
there  but  must  be  up  again  in  the  course  of  the  sum- 
mer. As  for  choice  of  Seines  to  match  the  two 
you  have  done, — it  is  not  to  be  done,  but  the  Hon- 
fleur  and  Caudebec  would  make  another  lovely 
pair. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
July  gth,  1879 

My  dear  Ward, 
lam  delighted  with  the  Griffin,*  and  shall  be 
able  to  refer  to  it  with  great  pleasure — and  also  to 
the  oak  sprays, t  in  time.    Fesole  has  been  stopped 

*  A  photograph  of  Ruskin's  drawing  of  a  mediaeval  griffin 
engraved  for  Modern  Painters. 

t  Also  a  photograph  of  a  drawing  by  Ruskin. 


[143] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

by  Deucalion,^  and  Botany.     What  has  stopped 
Heysham?^ 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
How  is  your  son  getting  on? 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
{Aug.  26th,  1879) 
Dear  Ward, 

I  am  signing  your  prints  and  you  shall  soon  have 
them.  The  Giotto  Towers  are  splendid.  It  is 
an  immense  power  being  able  to  produce  such. 
The  Crucifixion :[:  very  good.  I  don't  want  any 
special  form  of  it,  just  a  little  clear  one  that  will 
take  no  room.  Send  me  account  for  photographs  of 
griffin,  plants,  etc. 

Always  yours  affectioriately, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  The  Laws  of  Fesole  and  Deucalion,  books  which  Ruskin 
was  issuing  in  parts. 

t  Ward  was  copying  Turner's  Heysham.  The  original 
drawing  belonged  to  Ruskin. 

ij:  Photograph  of  a  study  by  Ruskin  from  Tintoret's  picture. 

[144] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
5/A  Sept,,  '79 
Dear  Ward, 

I  hope  to  be  up  in  town  on  the  15th  but  have 
telegraphed  for  the  drawings  as  I  must  examine  the 
Heysham  in  time  for  you  to  make  all  necessary 
corrections. 

You  are  the  best  judge  how  far  you  can  afford 
to  do  such  large  drawings  at  that  price.  I  wish 
I  could  afford  to  hold  them  for  you,  and  they 
should  not  go  so.  I  send  you  photographs  signed 
today  but  the  Titians  are  a  bad  lot,  and  you  must 
not  send  me  any  more  such.  Why  do  you  let  the 
people  impose  on  you? 
I  enclose  post  order  for  photographs  and  am 
Always  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 

Brant  WOOD, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

September  gth,  1879 

Dear  Ward, 

This  Heysham  is  entirely  wonderful  to  me — 
this  copy;  far  the  most  surprising  youVe  done  yet; 
and  faultless,  as  far  as  can  be.     I've  nothing  to 

[145] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

trouble  you  with,  except  the  softening  of  one  line 
of  ground;  and  a  little  finer  marking  of  the 
branches  in  willow  tree.  You  shall  have  it  back 
tomorrow.  I  must  put  my  signature  very  plain 
under  the  imitated  Turner's,  or  it  could  not  be 
honestly  let  out  of  our  hands. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 
This  note  missed  post  yesterday;  and,  after  fur- 
ther examining  the  copy,  I  am  so  entirely  pleased 
by  it  that  I  won't  trouble  you  by  sending  it  back. 
I  will  touch  the  two  places  myself,  and  alter 
''].  M.  W.  Turner"  into  'W.  Ward  after  Turner"; 
and  send  the  drawing  to  Liverpool,  at  your  friend's 
order. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 
J.  R(uskin) 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
Sunday   i/\.th  Sept.   (1879) 
Dear  Ward, 

The  drawing  goes  to  Mr.   Ross*   today,   very 
prettily,  though  I  say  it,  altered  from  ''J.  M.  W. 

*  Dr.  Denman  Ross. 

[146] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Turner"  to  ^'W.  Ward  after  J.  M.  W.  T."  with 
^'seen  with  delight  J.  Ruskin"  below. 

All  that  you  tell  me  of  Mr.  Ross  ^ives  me  ex- 
treme pleasure.  I  got  the  telegram  too  late  yes- 
terday to  send  the  drawings.  I  had  no  explicit 
instructions  before. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

{Sept.  i^th,  1879) 

Dear  Ward, 

Heysham  went  off  by  fast  train  to  L.pool  (Liv- 
erpool) yesterday  afternoon,  so  I  trust  all  will  be 
right.  I  am  so  very  glad  it  is  a  friend  of  Mr.  Nor- 
ton's who  has  got  it. 

I  was  still  more  impressed  by  the  skill  of  your 
work  in  the  course  of  retouching.  The  extreme 
caution  necessary  to  preserve  the  harmony  made 
me  wonder  how  you  ever  had  got  the  drawing  fin- 
ished. 

But  do  you  really  think  you  can  make  anything 
of  Fluelen?  You  know  it  is  clear  wash  over  %ths 
of  the  surface,  and  even  the  stippling  audaciously 

[147] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

frank.     You  might  produce  a  charming  approxi- 
mation, but  I  don't  think  a  copy  possible.* 

However,  I'll  bring  it  up  for  you  to  look  at. 
Can  you  be  at  the  National  Gallery  on  Friday? — 
and  if  so — at  ^   past  eleven? 

Kver  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 


Canterbury, 
26th  Sept.,  '79 

My  dear  Ward, 

Your  letter  of  the  24th  (which  I  received  only 
this  morning)  was  a  sorrowful  astonishment  to  me: 
for  I  had  concluded  from  the  firm  and  patient 
work  of  that  tempera  picture  that  your  son  was 
gaining  health. t 

But  in  most  respects  I  cannot  feel  that  you  stand 
in  need  of  consolation.  To  me,  personally,  your 
letter  is  a  joy  and  strength,  in  assuring  me  further 
and  with  so  great  clearness  of  the  existence  of  a 
spiritual  world.    Nor  do  I  think  the  happiest  and 

*  See  letter  of  May  17th,  1882. 

t  This  letter  relates  to  the  unexpected  death  of  my  brother, 
Thomas  Lawrence  Ward,  already  mentioned  in  the  memoir 
of  my  father.  The  ''tempera  picture"  was  a  copy,  which  he 
had  begun,  of  Filippo  Lippi's  Annunciation,  in  the  National 
Gallery.     W.  C.  W. 

[148] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

most  prosperous  fate  to  be  chosen,  if  with  no  hope 
of  the  future,  before  such  blessed  and  such  tempo- 
rary sorrow  as  this  of  yours. 

I  do  not  understand  from  your  note  whether  the 
boy  said  himself,  ^'silver  to  silver  creep,"  etc.,  and 
I  want  to  know  where  these  lines  are.*  For  the 
rest  it  seems  to  me  things  are  all  so  darkening — 
and  brightening  round  us  that  you  may  not  have 
long  to  wait. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 
I  am  at  Miss  Gale's 

Burgate  House 
Canterbury 
if  you  care  to  wTite  again. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

March  I2th,  1880 

Dear  Ward, 

I  shall  rejoice  in  seeing  the  Fluelen,  and  in  giv- 
ing you  a  paragraph  in  the  new  Catalogue.  I 
think  you  are  sure  of  me  at  Heme  Hill  on  Satur- 

*  "Silver  to  silver  creep  and  wind, 
And  kind  to  kind." 
The  lines  are  in  Emerson's  poem,  "Celestial  Love."  W.  C.  W. 

[149] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

day,  if  you  come  early  enough.     Breakfast  at  9 
or  ^/4  P^st,  would  be  best. 

Giotto  not  forgotten* — but  the  trouble  these 
little  things  give  me,  when  I'm  busy  at  big  ones, 
you  couldn't  conceive! 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

April  yth,  1880 
My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  so  glad  you  like  that  drawing.f  I  think 
it  a  most  precious  one,  and  am  most  anxious  to 
see  it  copied.  But  please  make  the  sky  just  the 
least  bit  more  forcible.  I  am  sure  it  is  a  little 
faded,  and  I  cannot  now  myself  see  the  white  cloud 
at  all  except  in  the  strongest  lights.  You  may  quite 
safely  give  it  a  very  definitely  greater  relief,  keep- 
ing the  floating  near  clouds  much  as  they  are, — 
but,   throughout,   allowing  a   little  more,   rather 

*  This  refers  to  the  Preface  Ruskin  promised  to  write  for 
a  series  of  photographs  of  the  sculptures  of  Giotto's  Tower, 
illustrating  Part  VI  of  Mornings  in  Florence.  They  were 
issued,  with  the  preface,  in  1881. 

t  Turner's  Aiguillette,  owned  by  Ruskin. 

[150] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

than  less,  weight  to  the  defining  shadows  in  sheep, 
rocks  and  clouds. 

Thanks  for  the  Giotto  references.    I'm  delighted 
that  the  Fluelen  has  been  so  satisfactory. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July  8th,  1880 
Dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  delighted  and  interested  by  your 
account  of  Mrs.  Derbishire  * — it  is  a  great  encour- 
agement to  me  to  know  of  such  friends  in  America. 
I  am  sure  she  will  be  able  to  do  more  good  with 
her  land  than  I  should,  but  I  hope  I  shall  see  her 
some  day.  It  will  be  three  weeks  yet  before  I  get 
to  London,  and  then  not  to  lecture.  Send  Mrs. 
Derbishire's  cheque  to  St.  George's  credit  at  the 
Union  Bank. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.    RuSKIN 

*  An  American,  who  was  Interested  in  Ruskin's  philanthropic 
schemes.  She  gave  Ward  £10.  for  the  funds  of  St.  George's 
Guild,  and  offered  two  hundred  acres  of  land  in  America. 

[151] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

Z^rd  July,  1880 

Dear  Ward, 

The  enclosed  letter  from  Mr.  Horsfall  *  gives 
me  much  pleasure  and  I  should  like  you  to  set  to 
work  directly  on  things  you  feel  sure  of  doing 
well.  What  I  should  like  best  myself,  if  you  can 
do  it,  would  be  one  of  the  Tivolis,  the  one  with  St. 
Peter's  on  horizon,  if  you  think  you  can  manage 
it.  (After  that  Heysham  I  think  you  may  do  any- 
thing!) and  the  St.  Maurice  Vignette,  or  the 
Aosta,  or  the  Farewell,  whichever  you  feel  most 
disposed  to  do.  Or  you  might  do  one  of  those  and 
a  body  colour  Seine  and  let  Mr.  Horsfall  choose. 
If  you're  not  tired  of  the  golden  avenue  do  that 
and  if  Mr.  H.  likes  the  vignette  better  I  could  take 
the  avenue  for  Sheffield. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 


*  Refers  to  an  appreciative  order  for  one  of  Ward's  Turner 
copies. 


[152] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July  2Sth,  1880 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  hold  for  the  Tivoli — the  others  teach  nothing. 
People  who  looked  at  that,  must  learn.  Send  Mr. 
H.  *  the  Aiguillette  to  look  at;  and,  if  he  likes  it  at 
all,  say  he  shall  have  the  original  to  compare  it 
with. 

Burgess  is  doing  the  Photos  for  lecture,!  but 
he's  abroad  just  now.  Say  they'll  be  ready  by  end 
of  year. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.   RUSKIN 

Herne  Hill,  S.  E. 

{Nov,  24/A,  1880) 
Dear  Ward, 

Of  course  I'll  do  that,  but  I  want  you  to  write 

for  me  all  you  know  now  of  Turner's  modes  of 

work  to  add  to,  or  change,  what  I've  said.:]: 

Ever  yours  affectionately, 

J.  R. 

*  Mr.  T.  C.  Horsfall,  referred  to  in  the  preceding  letter. 

t  A  Caution  to  Snakes,  delivered  at  the  London  Institution 
in  1880. 

t  My  father  wrote  for  Ruskin  a  detailed  analysis  of  the 
method  employed  by  Turner  in  his  body-colour  drawings  on 

[153] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Do  this  quickly,  as  shortly  as  you  can,  of  course, 
but  all  you  know. 

If  you  have  nothing  to  do,  begin  one  of  this 
drawing  for  me. 


Herne  Hill,  S.  E. 
Dear  Ward, 

Nothing  can  be  better  than  this  general  state- 
ment of  yours,  but  I  should  be  very  grateful  for  a 
complete  account  of  the  actual  process  of  all  the 
parts  in  the  avenue  one  which  you  copy  (Plate 
XVIH)  so  beautifully;  how  the  trunks  are  laid  on 
the  sky,  how  the  red  windows  into  the  houses, 
etc.,  etc.* 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 


grey  paper,  selecting  for  his  example  the  "View  on  the  Seine 
between  Mantes  and  Vernon"  already  referred  to  in  these  let- 
ters. The  information  was,  I  believe,  desired  by  Ruskin  for  use 
in  an  elaborate  Catalogue  of  the  Turner  Drawings  in  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  which  he  was  at  this  time  projecting;  but  his 
plan  was  frustrated  by  ill  health,  and  the  short  catalogue  which 
he  published  in  1881  did  not  admit  of  such  detail.  My  father's 
analysis  was  subsequently  printed,  in  the  Library  Edition  of 
Ruskin's  V^orks,  Vol.  XIII,  pp.  613-614.    W,  C,  W. 

*  See  note  to  preceding  letter. 

[154] 


HERUt     HILL. 
S.E. 


Plate  XVIII 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

December  Sth,  1880 

Dear  Ward, 

This  account  is  admirable,  just  what  I  want. 
Fve  lost  a  note  of  yours  that  came  yesterday — was 
it  about  the  loan  of  new  drawings?  I'll  get  one 
ofif  to  you  this  week — it's  a  small  body-colour,  of 
which  I've  long  wanted  one  for  myself  to  hand 
about — and  I'll  send  you  a  big  one  after  youVe 
done  it. 

Catalogue  getting  on,  but  tires  me.    But  I  think 
you'll  all  like  it — especially  that  good  Oldham.* 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

(17/A  Dec,  1880) 
Dear  Ward, 

There's  one  of  the  Roman  sketches,  I  think, 
with  Bernini's  portico,  somehow  like  this,  I've  lost 
its  number. 

Also  please  tell  me,  with  as  much  outline  as  the 
above!  what  numbers  251,  260,  and  267  are  like. 
I  believe  we  shall  have  it  out  before  Christmas. t 

*  William  Oldham,  curator  of  the  Turner  water  colours  in 
the  National  Gallery. 

t  This  refers  to  Ruskin's  catalogue  of  the  Turner  drawings 
in  the  National  Gallery,  1881. 

[155] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

I'm  glad  you  like  little  Chalky.*     You  needn't 
put  in  the  double  moon,  (a  sketch  made  after  din- 
ner?!— you'll  see  it's  lovely  by  candlelight.) 
Ever  yours  affectionately, 

J.R. 


Brantwood, 
CoNisTON,  Lancashire. 

1st  January,  1881 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  wish  you  a  happy  and  busy  New  Year;  and 
hope  to  promote  both  your  pleasure  and  work  not 
a  little,  but  I  knocked  myself  up  with  trying  to 
finish  catalogue  for  Christmas,  and  am  only  now 
setting  to  work  on  it  again.    But  it  is  nearly  done. 

I  have  no  note  in  my  list  of  two  drawings  of  the 
Swiss  sketch  series,  the  first  the  original  of  my 
own  St.  Gothard,  very  brown  with  lots  of  stones; 
the  second  a  beautiful  and  far  carried  Kussnacht, 
with  white  village  over  golden  lake  (Plate  XIX). 
realized  for  Mr.  Munro.f  Please  tell  me  the 
numbers  of  these.    You  will  see  in  the  new  history 

*  The  body-colour  drawing  by  Turner  mentioned  in  the 
preceding  letter. 

t   One  of  Turner's  earliest  patrons. 

[156] 


.  ..rC^  <-^^r    ^^.^^^^^z 


^^^^  t^;^  4^^  *^  T^  ^^^"^^ 


«*-*—. 


.^ 2^^,_^ '-^  "  o4r<-''^'-^-&M^ 


Plate  XIX 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

book^  your  work  cut  out  for  you  in  selling  pho- 
tographs. I  am  writing  today  to  Amiens  to  pro- 
vide you  with  starting  lot.  Weather,  here,  more 
abominable  and  oppressive  than  I've  ever  known 
it. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

2nd  Jan.,  1881 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  believe  you  will  find  the  people  to  whose  prin- 
cipal this  enclosed  letter  is  addressed,  very  pleas- 
ant correspondents.  They  keep  the  best  shop  in 
Amiens,  and  w^ill  be  agents  for  my  book.  A  father 
and  daughter  (or  niece)  and  an  aunt  I  fancy,  or 
it  may  be  just  papa  and  mama  and  miss,  but  they're 
all  nice. 

The  people  who  are  doing  the  photographic 
negatives  for  me  however  are  an  original  old  Ger- 
man and  his  two  daughters,  Mr.  Kaltenbacher, 
5  and  6  Galerie  de  Commerce,  Amiens. 

*  Ruskin's  Bible  of  Amiens.  A  series  of  photographs  from 
the  Cathedral  was  issued  to  illustrate  this  book. 

[157] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

I'm  going  to  send  them  a  poker  up  today. 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNisTON,  Lancashire. 

[Jan,  Sth,  1881) 

Dear  Ward, 

Neither  of  these  sketches  you  mean,  are  those  I 
miss.  My  St.  Gothard  you  would  know  in  a  mo- 
ment, and  the  other  is  finished  like  a  drawing,  a 
white  village  over  a  golden  lake. 

Jowett  has  the  first  half  of  catalogue  today  cor- 
rected and  is  to  send  you  two  copies  (one  for  Old- 
ham) which  please  compare  with  numbers  and 
correct  where  wrong. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

The  (Plate  XX)  is  near  Altorf.  Mine  is  all 
brown  and  near  Faido. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

March  3U/,  1881 
Dear  Ward, 

I've  been  pretty  well  past  the  rough  water  this 
week  back;  but  have  not  cared  to  do  much  since 

[158] 


^     d>^ 


^VuuL-t|^     ur^-tLx^    d4y-x.<A>«w>^ 

%.W ;^    ^ 


Plate  XX 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

I  got  out  of  it.  I  am  coming  round  gradually; 
and  send  you  today  some  parcels  of  Amiens  photos 
— which  I  should  be  glad  if  you  would  count  and 
get  mounted.  You  will  see  that  they  are  nearly  all 
of  the  central  wooden  Fleche — the  south  transept 
— and  its  porch;  there  is  only  one  of  the  grand 
west  front,  of  which  I  am  ordering  more. 

I  must  try  to  arrange  some  system  of  consecutive 
numbering  now,  for  all  the  photos  you  sell. 

The  Turner  Catalogue  is  a  load  on  my  con- 
science, but  I  can't  touch  it  just  now. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

BlL^NTWOOD, 
CONISTON,   LaNXASHIRE. 

April  2rd,  1881 

Dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  relieved  by  your  proposal  to  finish 
the  Catalogue  for  me.  I  will  look  out  the  proof 
sheets  tomorrow — it  is  short  post  today,  and  I  must 
settle  about  photos. 

Yes,  keep  your  list  continuous  and  unchanged, 
and  add  as  I  name  other  plates.  Send  me  those 
four  capitals  to  look  at, — that  'Torta  della  Carta" 
must  be  a  wrong  reference.     I  have  got  myself 

[159] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

nearly   into   working   trim,    but    eyes    not    strong 
enough  to  examine  your  drawing  yet. 

Don't  mount  the  new  photos,  of  course,  if  people 
like  them  better  as  they  are! 

I  will  write  out  a  list  of  nine  more  varieties  of 
subject,  from  41  to  50,  and  then  we  will  begin 
Amiens  with  51,  the  three  porches  of  the  west 
front;  52,  the  south  porch;  53,  the  south  porch  and 
transept;  54,  the  central  Fleche.  I  must  get  prices 
from  the  shop,  unless  you  know  them. 

What  am  I  to  give  you  for  this  Rhine  copy? 
It  can  be  retouched  at  any  time. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

14/A  April  (1881) 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  not  forgetting  you.  I  am  choosing  a  set  of 
twelve  out  of  the  thirty-six  caps  of  the  arcade,* 
and  writing  a  list  of  all,  straight,  with  references 
to  Stones  of  Venice  and  a  few  more  useful  com- 
ments on  the  twelve  I  choose.  Three,  of  the  four 
you  have,  are  among  the  best.  The  other  nine  I 
will  send  you  proofs  of,  which  you  will  have  to 
get  copied  in  a  systematic  and  regular  way,  and  it 

*  Ducal  Palace,  Venice. 

[160] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

will  go  hard  but  I  shall  get  custom  for  you.  The 
fact  is,  if  I  had  died  in  any  of  these  illnesses,  you 
would  have  felt  your  own  feet  and  used  them,  but 
hitherto  I've  not  only  left  you  unhelped  but  kept 
you  from  helping  yourself. 

I  do  think  however  you  might  have  done,  with 
Bunney's*  help,  something  better  to  illustrate  the 
Stones  of  Venice,  whether  I  was  dead  or  alive.  I 
shall  have  all  ready  for  you  by  the  end  of  week 
and  shall  send  off  on  Easter  Monday. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

As  soon  as  you  can  get  to  Gallery  again,  I  want 
a  copy  for  myself  of  the  Rouen  Cathedral  fagade, 
but  chiefly  for  the  color  and  effect.  You  may  do  it 
fast  and  easily. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
Sunday,  iSth  April,  1881 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  send  you  £20  but  you  must  look  upon  the 
difficulty   of   this   study   simply   as   practice — you 

*  John  W.  Bunney,  a  pupil  and  assistant  of  Ruskin's.  He 
was  then  living  in  Venice. 

[161] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

cannot  charge  your  customers  for  the  things  you 
had  to  learn,  still  less  your  teacher! 

I  did  your  drawing  injustice  in  my  first  languor 
of  sight.  It  is  very  good  and,  like  the  rest  of  your 
work  now,  very  wonderful  in  accuracy. 

However,  for  income,  I  fancy  the  sale  of  photo- 
graphs etc.  in  connection  with  my  books  may  be- 
come a  more  sure  one,  but  I  must  get  you  into  good 
order. 

The  large  photographs  I  sent  you  are  first  hand. 
They  are  not  from  Gorges  but  M.  Kaltenbacher, 
6  Galerie  de  Commerce,  Amiens,  and  I  will  get 
the  prices  for  you.  The  main  thing  is  to  get  my 
own  book  out. 

Of  the  four  capitals  you  must  at  once  cancel  this 
"Porta  della  Carta."  Where  you  got  it  I  can't 
think.  I  will  send  you  a  proper  list  of  all.  But 
those  with  the  bills  stuck  on  them  should  be  re- 
served for  special  customers,  in  relation  to  Fors. 

I  cannot  sign  any  more  photographs.  My  hand 
has  written  enough  and  it  is  at  last — tired.  I  re- 
turn the  parcel  unopened. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R. 


[162] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
Easter  Tuesday, 
{April  igth,  1881.) 
Dear  Ward, 

An  unexampled  following  of  fine  days,  and  the 
currant  leaves  coming  out,  have  checked  me  a 
little  on  the  marble  leaves — but  they're  very  nearly 
ready  now, — only  first  let  me  know  what  you  can, 
to  your  present  knowledge,  get  done  in  reduplica- 
tion. If  I  send  you  twelve,  i.e.,  nine  more  of  the 
size  of  your  little  ones,  can  you  get  them  repeated 
from  my  examples  of  the  same  size — or  larger — 
with  good  precision?  I  can  send  you  larger  ones, 
but  all  my  larger  prints  seem  partly  faded.  I  think 
if  you  would  call  on  Mr.  Spooner  in  the  Strand, 
and  shew  him  this  note,  he  might  be  able  to  supply 
me  with  some  new  proofs  of  better  colour. 

Anyhow,  you  shall  have  a  list  of  the  36  caps, 
with  comments  on  the  twelve.*  Or,  I  could  make 
out  a  set  of  twenty — if  you  liked  to  risk  so  many. 

How  wide  is  the  circle  of  my  patrons,  and  yours 
— after  my  forty  years  of  talk? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

*  A  project  for  photographs  of  the  Ducal  Palace  (Venice) 
capitals  with  special  notes  by  Ruskin.     It  was  not  carried  out, 

[163] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
(yf/)r.  30/A/81) 
My  dear  Ward, 

At  last  I  send  you  the  twelve  photographs  with 
list  enclosed  and  my  memorandum  of  the  entire 
series.  If  you  can  substitute  any  better  views  of 
these  capitals  you  may  yet — but  your  sages  and 
fates  can't  I  think  be  bettered. 

When  you  have  got  the  series  ready,  send  me 
proofs  and  I'll  add  a  word  or  two  to  each  with  a 
bit  of  preface. 

I  can't  break  up  my  room  just  now  as  I  am  ner- 
vous and  ill  enough  still  and  I  must  manage  to 
find  you  a  living  without  spoiling  my  own  bed- 
room. 

Have  you  begun  the  Rouen? 
I  shall  send  you  when  I  come  on  them  your 
views  on  the  Meuse  to  be  penned  in.     They  are 
too  faint  (for  my  old  eyes  at  least). 

I  think  that  gentleman  may  like  to  have  Mr. 
Severn's  copy  of  St.  Gothard.  It  is  carefully  done, 
and  I  want  to  make  copying  more  understood  as 
artists'  work. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

[164] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood 


CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

May  20th,  1881 
My  dear  Ward, 

It  is  a  great  delight  to  me  to  hear  of  the  Rouen\ 
being  finished.  I  wrote  to  ask  the  price  of  the 
Amiens  photographs  a  month  ago — but  the  man 
who  does  them  is  the  unmanageablest  log,  with 
good  timber  in  it,  only  no  pith,  I've  ever  chopped 
at.    I  make  another  try  today. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
May  2^th,  1881 
My  dear  Ward, 

Enclosed  cheque  for  £25  is  15  for  Rouen,  and 
10  for  your  Giotto  expenses,  which  you  may  put 
to  the  credit  of  anything  you  do  for  me  when  the 
book  refunds  you — if  it  does. 

Enclosed  also,  two  pages  of  preface,*  which  I 
hope  are  fairly  clear-written,  and  to  the  purpose. 
I  have  just  given  to  be  packed  for  rail  or  post  all 

*  To  The  Shepherd's  Tower,  a  series  of  photographs  from 
the  sculptures  on  Giotto's  Tower  in  Florence.  See  note  to 
letter  of  March  12th,  1880. 

[165] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

the  materials  for  Catalogue*  in  lump;  which,  if 
you  will  put  them  into  form,  at  Aylesbury — I  have 
written  to  Jowett  to  do  your  bidding  there — I'll 
glance  over  in  the  final  proofs.  There  must  be 
an  apology  to  Eastlaket  for  the  recast  of  every- 
thing, anyhow. 

The  Rouen  is  well  worth  £15  to  me,  and  figures 
do  well  enough  till  I  come  to  town  to  look. 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Herne  Hill, 
London,  S.  E. 
May  17/A,  1882 
My  dear  Ward, 

In  enclosing  you  cheque  for  the  very  moderate 
charge  on  Bridge  of  Meulan,\  let  me  very  fully 
congratulate  you  on  the  extreme  skill  you  have 
now  acquired  in  rendering  Turner's  best  and  most 
finished  water-colour  work.  Your  large  copy  of 
my  Fluelen  achieved  what  I  had  thought  impos- 
sible in  the  facsimile  of  his  clearest  and  purest 
washes  of  broad  colour;  and  the  drawing  of  More 
Park,  on  which  I  saw  you  yesterday  engaged,  was 

*  Turner  catalogue. 

t  Mr.  C.  L.  Eastlake,  Keeper  of  the  National  Gallery. 

%  Copy  of  Turner's  Drawing. 

[166] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

— so  far  as  you  have  carried  it — perfection  itself 
in  the  seizure  of  the  most  subtle  results  of  Turner's 
elaborate  and  almost  microscopic  execution,  in 
that  and  its  contemporary  drawings. 

I  am  therefore  happy  in  putting  it  in  your  power 
to  produce  a  facsimile  of  Turner's  mighty  draw- 
ing of  the  Coblentz;  and  I  sincerely  trust  that  your 
laboriously  acquired  skill,  and  unflinching  fidelity, 
may  be  at  last  acknowledged,  and  justly  rewarded. 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Brant  WOOD, 
31J/  Jan.  (1883) 
My  dear  Ward, 

The  drawings  are  safe  here,  and  are  as  I  used 
to  write,  admirable  and  an  immense  delight  to  me 
myself.  But  I  don't  see  the  prices  marked  on  them, 
and  I  had  no  idea  so  many  were  unsold.  I  think 
Mrs.  Talbot  should  choose  for  herself  one  of  the 
Rouens:  for  the  grey  ones,  what  would  you  take 
for  the  lot? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 
Mr.  W.  Ward 

[167] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire 

Candlemas,  1883. 
{Postmark  February  2nd,  '83.) 
Dear  Ward, 

I  send  you  £31  10.  o.  for  the  two  Romes,  which 
I  buy  for  St.  George.  I  shall  present  them  at  once 
(with  the  eight  Rivers,  which  I  am  greatly  glad 
of)  to  Whitelands  College,  Chelsea.  I  have  sent 
to  Mrs.  Talbot  the  Rouen  Cathedral  of  my  own, 
telling  her,  if  she  likes  it,  she  may  have  it  for  £21 
o.  o.  (it  having  been  done  for  me  cheap  at  15), 
and  that  she  is  to  send  the  cheque  to  you.  You 
shall  work  out  the  15  for  me  soon. 
In  haste — and  utter  darkness! 

Yours  affectionately, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNisTON,  Lancashire. 
^thJuly,  1883 

My  dear  Ward, 

You  have  been  very  good  in  not  worrying  me 
lately.  I  have  been  thinking  much  and  often  of 
you. 

[168] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Your  penning  in  of  your  own  sketches  disap- 
pointed me  badly,  or  you  would  have  had  more 
work  of  that  kind,  but  I've  got  some  at  Oxford 
ready  for  another  trial,  on  Turner  himself.  I  want 
some  faint  photographic  outlines  carefully  deep- 
ened with  reference  to  the  originals  and  I  hope  to 
get  back  these  in  a  fortnight,  and  send  for  you. 

Meantime,  I  w^ant  some  more  vignettes  for  Ox- 
ford. Have  you  an  Aosta  forward?  or  a  Jacque- 
line Alps?  If  not,  begin  that, — you  have  seldom 
done  it.  Or  if  some  other  student  is  at  work  on  it, 
— the  first  of  the  Italy,  Lake  of  Geneva — or  the 
last.  Farewell.  I  hope  the  light  will  be  pretty  good 
after  this  fit  of  thunder  and  rain. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
Sth  July,  '83 

Dear  Ward, 

I  am  extremely  glad  to  know  that  you  disliked 
those  outlines  yourself,  but  you  ought  to  be  able  to 
put  spirit  into  a  dead  outline  by  other  people  in- 
stead of  losing  what  was  in  your  own.     Anyhow, 

[169] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  reinforce  some  Turners 
for  me  and  I'm  partly  in  hopes  you  may  be  able 
to  do  some  etching  from  them.  I  have  much 
planned,  and  am  at  present  well  and  able  for  work, 
if  I  can  only  keep  within  compass. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

March  i^th,  1884 

Dear  Ward, 

Please  send  the  drawing  to  Alex.  Macdonald 
Esq.,  84  Woodstock  Road,  Oxford. 

I'm  so  glad  you  like  the  Fors.  Some  more  nice 
bits  would  come,  if  only  I  could  get  a  breath  of 
time. 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R(uskin) 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

17th  March,  1884 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  shall  be  delighted  to  look  at  the  drawing  and 
I  know  the  original  quite  well  enough  to  be  sure 

[170] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

in  my  certificate,  or  to  suggest  any  possible  im- 
provement.*    You  may  send  it  here  at  once. 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July  c^th,  1884 

Dear  Ward, 

I  am  greatly  pleased  with  this  drawing  of  the 
Portico. t  Let  me  know  your  full  price  for  it  to  a 
stranger,  and  I  will  give  it  to  you  with  pleasure. 

Be  so  good  as  to  spare  half  an  hour  to  a  girl  who 
has  some  blundering  gift  which  may  be  useful  to 
her  in  china  painting,  if  you  explain  to  her  the 
frightful  coarseness  of  her  Turner — so  called — 
copies.  I  have  told  her  she  may  write  to  you  to 
make  an  appointment;  but  very  probably  she 
won't,  as  I  have  sent  her  a  letter  as  sharp  as  she 
deserves — at  least  I  have  sent  it  to  her  brother — 
perhaps  he  won't  read  it  to  her. 

I  hear  from  Mr.  Horsfall  that  he  has  finished 

*  An  interesting  expression  of  Ruskin's  opinion  as  to  hfs 
own  memory  and  knowledge  of  Turner's  drawings, 
t  Copy  of  Turner's  St.  Peter's  in  Rome. 

[171] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

his  work  in  Manchester,  and  am  going  to  send  him 
notes  on  your  copies. 

Yours  affectionately, 

J.  RUSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNisTON,  Lancashire. 

July  Jth,  1884 
Dear  Ward, 

I  enclose  cheque  with  true  pleasure,  and  many 
thanks  for  your  promise  to  help  the  girl — if  she 
will  be  helped. 

The  news  from  Manchester  are  extremely  pleas- 
ant to  me. 

Yours  affectionately, 

J.  RuSKIN 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 
{Mar,  8,  '85) 
Dear  Ward, 

Drawing  not  come  but  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  it, 
— you,  and  your  son,  and  enclose  cheque  for  £10, 
for  a  New  Year's  gift — whether  I  keep  the  draw- 
ing or  not. 

Yours  affectionately, 
J.R. 
[172] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Mr.  Severn's,  Herne  Hill, 

Friday 

Dear  Ward, 

I'm  shut  up  with  a  cold,  but  if  you  feel  able  to 
run  out  here  I'll  sign  the  Datur  Hora  *  for  you  if 
I  like  it  (I  know  the  original  well  enough  now  I), 
and  the  Bellinzona  you  can  bring  with  you.  I 
shall  be  at  home  tomorrow  also  if  you  prefer  work- 
ing at  the  Gallery  in  this  really  bright  day. 

Affectionately  yours, 

J.R. 


Herne  Hill, 
London,  S.  W. 
Wednesday,  May  iph,  1885 

Dear  Ward 

Can  you  bring  Florence,  and  your  copy,  here 
any  time  tomorrow — after  12  and  before  4?  I'll 
criticize  and  pay,  and  we'll  have  a  general  chat. 

I  liked  your  son's  drawing,  but  not  his  choice 
in  the  part  of  picture.! 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 
J.  Ruskin 

*  Datur  Hora  Quieti,  the  Turner  vignette  in  Roger's  Poems, 
t  The  principal  group  in  Bellini's  Peter  Martyr. 

[173] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

Herne  Hill, 
London,  S.  W. 
May  zgth,  1885 
Dear  Ward, 

I  quite  forget  what  I  wrote  to  you!    But  I  want 
to  see  the  Florence*     Can  you  bring  it  out  with 
the  original  on  Monday  morning,  before  one? 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

July  2nd,  1885 

My  dear  Ward, 

I  am  so  very  sorry  not  to  have  replied  before 
about  the  Teal^  I  shall  be  most  grateful  to  Mr. 
Eastlake  if  he  will  allow  it  to  be  taken  down  for 
you. 

Send  me  my  Florence  here.  I  am  satisfied  you 
have  done  your  best  in  restoring. 

How  about  Zug? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RuSKIN 

*  Ward's  copy  of  Turner's  drawing. 

f  A  drawing  by  Turner  in  the  National  Gallery. 

[174] 


TO  WILLIAM  WARD 

Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

January  ^isiy  1886. 

Dear  Ward, 

I  am  glad  to  hear  of  you  again,  and  to  be  able 
to  write  to  you. 

Miss  G's  *  work  is  admirable — from  nature; 
the  decorative  I  doubt.  I  don't  believe  the  Irish 
one  is  rightly  copied,  but  I  should  be  delighted  to 
see  her  work  reproduced — only — how  is  it  to  be 
done? 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J,  RUSKIN 


Brantwood, 
CoNiSTON,  Lancashire. 

November  20th,  1886 

Dear  Ward, 

No  drawing  of  mine  is  ever  to  leave  my  walls 
more,  while  I  live.  But  I  am  open  to  purchase  of 
anything  you  can  do  with  ease  to  yourself  from 
the  National  Gallery.    You  know  how  long  Fve 

*  Miss  Gittfns,  a  teacher  of  drawing. 

[175] 


JOHN  RUSKIN'S  LETTERS 

been   wanting  some   of   the   bigger   sketches — St. 
Got  hards,  Romes,  etc. 
Send  me  some  talk  and  news. 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

J.  RUSKIN 


[176] 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  LIBRARY 


